The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off June 11th, and for the first time since 1994, the world’s biggest sporting event is happening right in our backyard. The United States, Canada, and Mexico are co-hosting 48 nations across 16 cities from June 11 through July 19, and I have been looking forward to this one for a long time.

I was 14 years old the last time this country hosted the World Cup. I still remember watching a wild-haired central defender named Alexi Lalas play every minute for the United States, his red hair and beard making him one of the most recognizable faces in the tournament. He became something of a cultural icon that summer, the kind of player who made a generation of American kids think soccer was cool. More than 30 years later, I am using his power rankings as a primary research source for this preview. Full circle.

This tournament hits close to home in more ways than one. When the host cities were announced, I had one thing circled immediately -- taking my boys and my step-dad to a game. Three generations, the World Cup, right here in the US. The closest venue to us is Kansas City, and the plan felt as simple as it sounds. Make the drive, get in the building, watch the world’s game live. Then I looked at the ticket prices.

FIFA’s lottery system and dynamic pricing have turned a family outing into something closer to a car payment. The Argentina opener in Kansas City is running close to $2,500 a ticket on the secondary market, with quarterfinal seats topping $4,000. You can read more about the Kansas City ticket situation here. We will be watching from home, and FIFA should be embarrassed. The beautiful game has always belonged to everyone, and that spirit is getting buried somewhere between the lottery system and the VIP hospitality packages.

Enough venting. The soccer is going to be spectacular regardless of where you watch it. This preview breaks down all 48 teams, makes picks from the group stage all the way through the final, and tells you exactly who Pick ‘em Paul thinks is lifting the trophy on July 19th at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Let’s get into it.

The Format: What You Need to Know

For the first time in history, the World Cup features 48 teams split across 12 groups of four. Every team plays three group stage games. The top two finishers from each group advance automatically, and the eight best third-place finishers across all 12 groups also move on. That brings the total to 32 teams in a new knockout round called the Round of 32, which is essentially the old Round of 16 with one extra layer added before it.

That third-place qualifier rule matters, and we will come back to it when we get to the Group of Death conversation. The short version is this: finishing third is no longer a tournament-ending result.

The tournament runs June 11 through July 19 across 16 host cities, with the final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The Elephant in the Room: Where is Italy?

Before we get into the groups, we have to talk about Italy. The four-time World Cup champions are sitting at home for the third consecutive time, missing the tournament after losing a penalty shootout to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European playoff final on March 31st. No other World Cup-winning nation has ever missed three straight tournaments, and Italy managed to do it in the year the field expanded from 32 teams to 48. The door has never been wider, and the Azzurri still could not walk through it.

It gets stranger from there. A Trump administration envoy named Paolo Zampolli publicly suggested that FIFA remove Iran from the tournament and replace them with Italy, reportedly as a diplomatic gesture to smooth things over between the US and Italy after a very public falling out between President Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. You can read the full story here. Italy’s own officials called the idea shameful and rejected it outright. FIFA dismissed it entirely. Iran is in the tournament and preparing to play their Group G games in Los Angeles and Seattle this summer. Italy is watching from the couch, same as the last two World Cups, and they earned that result on the field.

Italy sits at number 12 in the FIFA world rankings. Let that serve as a reminder that rankings and results are two very different things when knockout soccer is involved.

The Group Stage: All 48 Teams, Pick ‘em Paul’s Predictions

Before we get into the group-by-group breakdown, we need to address the Group of Death conversation, because sports journalists cannot seem to agree on which group deserves the title this year.

Most analysts are pointing to Group I -- France, Senegal, Norway and Iraq -- and the argument usually comes back to one name: Erling Haaland. Norway has the best striker on the planet right now, and the idea of watching him at his first World Cup is genuinely exciting. But let me push back on something. Soccer is a team sport. One elite striker does not a Group of Death make. If individual brilliance were the only measure, Egypt would be terrifying too, and Mo Salah has been doing what Haaland does for a decade. Group I deserves the respect it is getting, but the FIFA rankings tell a more complete story. England is ranked 4th in the world. Croatia is ranked 11th. Those two teams are sharing a group in Group L, and that conversation is not getting nearly enough attention.

Here is the other thing nobody is talking about. The Group of Death concept took a real hit this year with the expanded format. In previous World Cups, finishing third meant going home. Now the eight best third-place finishers across all 12 groups advance to the Round of 32. In Group I specifically, France, Senegal and Norway could all realistically advance. The stakes of finishing third in a tough group are simply not what they used to be. Keep that in mind as we go group by group.

Group A: Mexico, South Korea, Czechia, South Africa

FIFA Rankings: Mexico #15, South Korea #25, Czechia #41, South Africa #60

Mexico gets every group stage game on home soil at the renovated Estadio Azteca, and that matters. The crowd advantage is real in international soccer, and the Mexicans will feed off it. They drew with both Portugal and Belgium in March friendlies, which is encouraging. South Korea is the second most talented team in this group and has Son Heung-min, who has made the move to LAFC in MLS to get US experience before the tournament. Czechia snuck through the European playoffs by beating Denmark on penalty kicks, and they are a physical, set-piece-oriented team that can give anyone a tough 90 minutes. South Africa is the weakest team in the group and will be happy to be here.

Czechia advancing as a third-place team is the pick here. They have enough grit to grind out the four or five points needed to crack the top eight third-place finishers.

JPM Picks: Mexico and South Korea advance. Czechia as a third-place qualifier.

Group B: Switzerland, Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Qatar

FIFA Rankings: Switzerland #19, Canada #30, Qatar #55, Bosnia #65

This group has one of the better storylines of the tournament tucked inside it. Bosnia and Herzegovina beat Italy on penalty kicks on March 31st to earn their spot here. Let that land for a second. Italy, ranked 12th in the world, a four-time World Cup champion, needed just one win to qualify, and Bosnia knocked them out on the biggest stage. That team is coming in with serious confidence. They are not here to survive the group stage. They believe they belong.

Switzerland is the highest ranked team despite Canada being the host nation, and the Swiss are exactly what you expect: disciplined, hard to break down, and ruthlessly efficient. Canada has more talent than ever with Alphonso Davies leading the way from the back, and they will have enormous crowd support in their home country. Qatar is the only team here I have no interest in defending. They went 0-3 as tournament hosts in 2022, scored one goal, and proved that you cannot purchase your way into being a competitive soccer nation overnight. Nothing about their preparation suggests 2026 will be different. Qatar goes 0-3, loses all three games, and flies home early. Money cannot buy goals.

JPM Picks: Switzerland and Canada advance. Bosnia as a third-place dark horse qualifier.

Group C: Brazil, Morocco, Scotland, Haiti

FIFA Rankings: Brazil #6, Morocco #8, Scotland #43, Haiti #83

This is the most straightforward group to pick and one of the more interesting to watch. Brazil and Morocco are clearly the top two, but neither should be taken for granted given the chaos that surrounds both squads heading into the summer. Brazil has not won a World Cup since 2002, has dealt with significant injuries to key players, and has the lovable but unpredictable Carlo Ancelotti now managing the Selecao. Vinicius Junior is healthy and ready to remind the world he is one of its best players. Morocco is no longer the surprise package they were in 2022 when they reached the semifinal. Everyone knows what they can do now, and new manager Mohamed Ouahbi has shifted the team toward a more attack-minded style that could cut both ways.

Scotland is back at their first World Cup since 1998, and their fans alone make this group worth watching. Scott McTominay has been exceptional for Napoli this season, but Scotland will need to take care of Haiti in their opener to have any chance of advancing. Haiti is making just their second World Cup appearance and their first since 1974. They are here to enjoy the experience.

JPM Picks: Brazil and Morocco advance.

Group D: USA, Turkiye, Australia, Paraguay

FIFA Rankings: USA #16, Turkiye #22, Australia #27, Paraguay #40

The home country picks it up in Group D. The United States will have deafening crowd support across their three group games and a relatively manageable path to the Round of 32. Do not mistake manageable for easy. Turkiye is the real threat here. Arda Guler has been one of Real Madrid’s best players this season and is only 20 years old. There is a new pragmatism to this Turkish side that makes them dangerous in a way they have not always been, and they represent the biggest test the US faces in the group stage.

Australia is always scrappy and loves nothing more than the underdog role in a tournament. They have no stars to speak of, which actually makes them harder to prepare for. Paraguay will try to grind and muck things up, which is a legitimate strategy in a group this balanced. The US needs to take care of business against Paraguay and Australia, then survive Turkiye in the final group game on June 25th. Australia advancing as a third-place qualifier is a live pick worth making.

JPM Picks: USA and Turkiye advance. Australia as a third-place qualifier.

Group E: Germany, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Curacao

FIFA Rankings: Germany #10, Ecuador #23, Ivory Coast #34, Curacao #82

Germany has one of the easier draws in the tournament, and they need it. Julian Nagelsmann’s squad has real questions at goalkeeper, up front, and about whether Florian Wirtz can rediscover his best form after a difficult first season at Liverpool. Even a shaky German team is still Germany, though, and they should win this group without too much drama. Ecuador has what analysts have been calling a golden generation, built around Moises Caicedo at Chelsea and defenders Piero Hincapie and Willian Pacho. The talent is real. Whether it translates at a World Cup is a different conversation.

Ivory Coast is back at the tournament for the first time since 2014 and brings genuine attacking quality through Wilfried Zaha. They did not get here by accident. Curacao is the smallest nation in the tournament, a country of roughly 156,000 people making their World Cup debut. Every moment they are on that field is a historic one for them.

Ivory Coast advancing as a third-place qualifier would be one of the better stories of the group stage and it is a completely realistic pick given what is behind them on paper.

JPM Picks: Germany and Ecuador advance. Ivory Coast as a third-place qualifier.

Group F: Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, Tunisia

FIFA Rankings: Netherlands #7, Japan #18, Sweden #38, Tunisia #44

The Dutch have a strong team on paper but this is not a vintage Netherlands squad by any stretch. Several key players are limping toward the summer after grinding club seasons, and there are genuine concerns about where the goals are coming from. Japan comes in with serious momentum after beating England at Wembley in March, and manager Hajime Moriyasu has built a team that works harder than anyone and never stops running. Viktor Gyokeres made the move from Sporting to Arsenal and has been one of the most productive strikers in Europe this season, which makes Sweden worth watching despite their ranking.

Tunisia has never advanced from the group stage at a World Cup, and nothing about this group changes that trajectory.

Sweden advancing as a third-place qualifier is the pick here. Gyokeres alone makes them dangerous enough to accumulate the points needed.

JPM Picks: Netherlands and Japan advance. Sweden as a third-place qualifier.

Group G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand

FIFA Rankings: Belgium #9, Iran #21, Egypt #29, New Zealand #85

Belgium has the most comfortable group in the tournament and should advance without too many problems. The bigger question for the Red Devils is whether their aging stars have enough left to make a deep run once they leave the group stage. Kevin De Bruyne is 35, Romelu Lukaku has barely played for Inter Milan all season due to injuries, and this squad is not the Golden Generation team that threatened to win a World Cup in 2018. The return of Thibaut Courtois in goal is a genuine boost, and Jeremy Doku on the left wing has become one of the most dangerous wide players in Europe under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

Egypt is the second most talented team in this group on the strength of one player: Mohamed Salah. At this stage of his career Salah is still one of the best players on the planet, and Egypt has never won a World Cup game. This might be their best chance.

Iran is the elephant in the room. They are ranked 21st in the world, technically the second-best team in this group on paper, and they are preparing to play three games in the United States while their country is at war with the country hosting the tournament. The geopolitical noise surrounding this team is unlike anything we have seen at a World Cup. A Trump administration envoy tried to have them replaced with Italy. Their federation has been requesting game relocations that FIFA denied. Read the full story here. There is an enormous distraction factor here that no FIFA ranking can account for. The pick is that Iran does not advance.

New Zealand is ranked 85th in the world and is here to enjoy the experience.

JPM Picks: Belgium and Egypt advance. Iran does not advance despite their ranking.

Group H: Spain, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, Cape Verde

FIFA Rankings: Spain #2, Uruguay #17, Saudi Arabia #61, Cape Verde #69

Spain is the favorite to win this entire tournament at +500, and Group H is about as favorable a draw as the reigning Euro champions could have hoped for. La Roja have not lost a competitive match since March 2024, and the only real news worth monitoring is a hamstring injury to teenage winger Lamine Yamal. The Barcelona star is expected to recover in time, but any setback changes the calculus significantly. If Yamal is healthy, Spain is the best team in the world. Full stop.

Uruguay is the clear second-best team in this group and has the quality to advance without drama. Federico Valverde at Real Madrid is one of the best midfielders in club soccer right now, and even without the Suarez and Cavani generation, this Uruguayan squad is not a team anyone wants to face. Saudi Arabia fired their manager 56 days before their opening game against Uruguay, which is not the kind of stability you want heading into a World Cup. Cape Verde is making their World Cup debut and is here for the experience.

JPM Picks: Spain and Uruguay advance.

Group I: France, Senegal, Norway, Iraq

FIFA Rankings: France #1, Senegal #14, Norway #31, Iraq #57

Here it is. The group everyone is talking about. France is ranked first in the world, has the most talented and deepest squad in the tournament, and has everything they need to win the whole thing. This is manager Didier Deschamps’ final tournament in charge, and the pressure to send him out with a trophy is real. Kylian Mbappe leads the attack, though his preparation has been interrupted by minor injuries and reported squad tension at Real Madrid. France will be tested here.

Senegal is genuinely dangerous. They held opponents to just two goals in seven Africa Cup of Nations games, and when their rock-solid defense is paired with the attacking quality of Sadio Mane and Nicolas Jackson, they are a matchup problem for anyone. The June 16 opening match between France and Senegal in New York is one of the must-watch games of the tournament.

Norway. Let’s talk about Norway. Yes, Erling Haaland is the best center forward in the world and he is playing at his first World Cup -- Norway has not qualified since 1998, two years before Haaland was even born. That storyline sells itself. But here is the thing about international soccer that gets lost in the Haaland conversation: you cannot win it alone. Norway dominated qualifying, including two wins over Italy, but this team needs more than one great player performing to reach the knockout rounds. The question for Norway is whether Martin Odegaard and the supporting cast can deliver when France and Senegal are bringing everything they have.

Iraq qualified for this tournament in the most remarkable fashion, arranging a charter flight to Mexico for their intercontinental playoff after regional airspace closures made the normal route impossible. They beat Bolivia 2-1, ended a 40-year absence from the World Cup, and now get to play France in Philadelphia. That is a story worth appreciating regardless of the result.

As noted earlier, the Group of Death label loses some of its sting in this format. France, Senegal, and Norway could all realistically advance to the Round of 32 as group winner, runner-up, and third-place qualifier respectively. Norway advancing as a third-place team is the pick.

JPM Picks: France and Senegal advance. Norway as a third-place qualifier.

Group J: Argentina, Algeria, Austria, Jordan

FIFA Rankings: Argentina #3, Algeria #28, Austria #24, Jordan #63

Argentina is the defending champion, and Lionel Messi is 38 years old. He has carefully managed his playing time at Inter Miami all season specifically to arrive at this tournament in peak condition. The whole world wants to watch him play. Whether he still has enough to carry Argentina to back-to-back titles is the most compelling individual storyline of the entire tournament. It has never been done since Brazil in 1958 and 1962.

The more interesting conversation is who finishes second in this group. Austria is actually ranked higher than Algeria at 24th versus 28th in the world, and this Austrian team has been quietly building something impressive since Euro 2024. They held opponents to the lowest opponent pass completion rate of anyone in the World Cup field since the end of that tournament. That is a real number, not noise. Algeria has Riyad Mahrez and a strong attack but their defensive fragility is a legitimate concern.

Jordan is making their World Cup debut, which is a genuine achievement for a country that has been building this program for years. Their last group game against Messi and Argentina is a bucket list moment for every Jordan player who makes the roster.

The dark horse pick here is Algeria advancing as a second-place finisher, with Austria advancing as a third-place qualifier. Austria doing it on merit while ranked above Algeria is the kind of result that makes tournament previews worth writing.

JPM Picks: Argentina and Algeria advance. Austria as a third-place qualifier.

Group K: Portugal, Colombia, DR Congo, Uzbekistan

FIFA Rankings: Portugal #5, Colombia #13, DR Congo #46, Uzbekistan #50

Portugal versus Colombia on June 27th in Miami is one of the marquee group stage matches of the tournament. Two top-15 FIFA teams, both loaded with attacking talent, fighting for group supremacy. On the Portuguese side, the elephant in the room is Cristiano Ronaldo at 41 years old, playing in what is almost certainly his final World Cup. The man has every major club trophy imaginable and still does not have a World Cup title. The dynamic around him will either unite or fracture this team. Bruno Fernandes has been playing some of the best soccer of his career at Manchester United, and PSG’s Portuguese contingent gives this squad real depth.

Colombia enters as one of the most interesting teams in the tournament. Lalas himself had them ranked fourth overall in his power rankings. Luis Diaz has had a remarkable season with Bayern Munich. James Rodriguez joined MLS side Minnesota United to get US experience before the tournament, which tells you everything about how serious this team is about playing in front of friendly crowds. The pick here is Colombia finishing first, with Portugal advancing in second, as a nod to the South American heat advantage on US soil.

DR Congo qualified under their current name for the first time ever, beating Jamaica in extra time in the intercontinental playoff. They are back in the World Cup for the first time in 52 years. Uzbekistan is almost entirely domestically based and will find this level of competition eye-opening.

JPM Picks: Colombia and Portugal advance.

Group L: England, Croatia, Ghana, Panama

FIFA Rankings: England #4, Croatia #11, Panama #33, Ghana #74

Here is the argument for Group L as the true Group of Death, and Pick ‘em Paul is making it. England is ranked 4th in the world. Croatia is ranked 11th. Those are the two best teams by FIFA ranking sharing any single group in this entire tournament. Group I has a higher average ranking because of France at number one, but the gap between the top two teams and the bottom two in Group I is enormous. In Group L, even Panama at 33rd is a legitimate soccer nation.

England has been knocking on the door for years under Gareth Southgate. Thomas Tuchel is now the manager and brings tactical flexibility and big-game experience that Southgate often lacked. Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Bukayo Saka is an attacking lineup that belongs in the conversation with any team in this tournament. The question is whether Tuchel can unlock all of them at the same time.

Croatia has no business still being this good. Luka Modric is 40 years old and playing for AC Milan, and he is still one of the best midfielders in Europe. Croatia finished second in 2018 and third in 2022. They do not rebuild. They just reload with the same generation of players and somehow keep competing at the highest level. That eventually runs out, but it has not run out yet.

Ghana is young, inexperienced, and probably a tournament ahead of their best run. Panama is back after missing 2022 and will be physical and hard to break down. Panama advancing as a third-place qualifier is the pick. They will grind out enough points against Ghana to sneak through.

JPM Picks: England and Croatia advance. Panama as a third-place qualifier.

The Knockout Stage: Pick ‘em Paul’s Full Bracket

The group stage sets the table. The knockout rounds are where the tournament actually gets made. Here is how it plays out.

Round of 32

The Round of 32 is brand new to the World Cup format this year, and for most of the first-timers it will be a brief visit. Germany handles Australia in Boston. France dispatches Sweden in New York. Netherlands eliminates Morocco in Guadalajara. Brazil takes care of Japan in Houston. Canada edges South Korea in Los Angeles. Senegal knocks out Ecuador in Dallas. Mexico survives Ivory Coast in Mexico City. England gets past Norway in Atlanta. Switzerland beats Austria in Vancouver. Argentina beats Uruguay in a South American derby in Miami. Colombia sends Panama home in Kansas City. Turkey outlasts Egypt in Dallas.

Two matchups in the Round of 32 deserve real attention.

Spain versus Algeria in Los Angeles on July 2nd is a showcase moment for Riyad Mahrez. The Algerian winger has been one of the best players in the world at his peak, and facing the number one team in the tournament on the biggest stage is exactly the kind of game his career needed. Spain advances, but Algeria makes them work for it.

The other matchup worth lingering on is USA versus Bosnia and Herzegovina in San Francisco on July 1st. Bosnia got here by beating Italy on penalty kicks. They came into this tournament with a chip on their shoulder and proved it in the group stage. Advancing as a third-place team from a group that included Switzerland and Canada is no small thing for a nation ranked 65th in the world. The Americans win this one, but Bosnia’s run is already one of the best stories of the tournament. They earned every moment of it.

Round of 16

This is where the tournament gets genuinely wild, and this is where Pick ‘em Paul needs to warn American, Mexican and Canadian readers about what is coming.

All three host nations are going home in the Round of 16.

Mexico falls to England in Mexico City on July 5th. The atmosphere will be electric and hostile in equal measure, and England’s depth and tactical quality under Thomas Tuchel is simply too much for El Tri to handle on home soil. Canada goes out at the hands of the Netherlands in Houston on July 4th. The Dutch are not at their vintage best, but they are good enough to handle a Canadian side that punched above its weight to get this far. The United States faces Belgium in Seattle on July 6th, and this is the toughest pill to swallow. Belgium is ranked 9th in the world, has Courtois back in goal and Doku terrorizing fullbacks on the left. The Americans compete, the crowd in Seattle makes it loud, and Belgium advances anyway.

Three host nations. Three Round of 16 exits. The World Cup is back in the United States for the first time in 32 years and all three North American hosts are watching the quarterfinals from home. That stings, but it is the reality of what happens when you put 48 of the best national teams in the world in the same bracket.

The other Round of 16 matchup you need to watch closely is Spain versus Portugal in Dallas on July 6th. Two of the best six teams in the world, sharing the same language and a border, meeting before the quarterfinals. Ronaldo at 41 years old, on the biggest stage, in what is almost certainly his final World Cup match. Spain advances at +500, but the margin will be slim and the drama will be real.

France beats Germany in Philadelphia on July 4th in a statement performance that announces Les Bleus as the tournament’s most dangerous team. Brazil beats Senegal in New York on July 5th. Argentina takes care of Turkey in Atlanta on July 7th. Colombia sends Switzerland home in Vancouver on July 7th to complete the quarterfinal field.

Quarterfinals

Four matches. Every single one of them worth waking up early or staying up late for.

France beats the Netherlands in Boston on July 9th. The Dutch have quality throughout the squad but France has too much firepower and too much depth. Kylian Mbappe on a tournament stage is a different version of Kylian Mbappe, and the Netherlands does not have an answer for him.

Spain beats Belgium in Los Angeles on July 10th. Belgium gives them their hardest test since the group stage. Doku is a genuine nightmare to defend wide and De Bruyne at 35 still has the passing range to pull Spain apart. Spain’s collective quality wins out in the end, but this is the game that earns the Belgians respect regardless of the result.

England beats Brazil in Miami on July 11th. Write it down. England over Brazil is the result of the tournament, the kind of scoreline that gets remembered for decades. Tuchel sets his team up tactically to neutralize Vinicius Junior, Kane scores, and England reaches the semifinals for the first time since 1990. The scenes in Miami when that final whistle blows will be something else entirely.

Argentina beats Colombia in Kansas City on July 11th. Lionel Messi, at 38 years old, in his final World Cup, walks into Arrowhead Stadium and delivers. Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez carry the attacking load, but it is Messi’s tournament and everyone in that building knows it. Colombia and Luis Diaz make it competitive until the final whistle, but Argentina advances.

Semifinals

Spain versus France. Dallas, July 13th.

This is the match of the tournament. The two best teams in the world by FIFA ranking, meeting in a semifinal with a World Cup final on the line. France has Mbappe at his absolute best. Spain has Pedri orchestrating from the middle of the field and a collective system that no other team in the world can replicate right now. Spain has not lost a competitive match since March 2024. France is the world’s top-ranked team and has the squad depth to match anyone. This goes deep into extra time before Spain finds the goal that sends them through. It is the defining match of this generation of Spanish soccer and it happens to fall in a semifinal rather than the final itself.

England versus Argentina. East Rutherford, July 14th.

The history between these two nations in a World Cup does not need much explaining. The Hand of God. The 1998 penalty shootout. Decades of drama packed into a rivalry that means something different to each country. This is Messi’s final match in a World Cup. Argentina have been the defending champions and the favorites to repeat, and they fall here to an English side playing with the kind of tactical cohesion Tuchel demanded from the first day of training. England reaches the World Cup Final for the first time since 1966. Sixty years of hurt, one game from ending.

The Final: Spain vs England

July 19, 2026. MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Spain +500. England +650.

This is the final Pick ‘em Paul predicted from the start, and it is the right one.

England has overachieved to get here. Beating Brazil and Argentina in back-to-back knockout rounds is a run for the ages and a testament to what Tuchel has built. The noise around Wembley, around every pub in England, around the entire country will be deafening heading into July 19th. Sixty years of waiting, the chance right there.

Spain is the best team in the world. Not the best team on their best day. The best team, consistently, over the longest sustained run of any nation in modern international soccer. They won Euro 2024. They have not lost a competitive match in over two years. Pedri is the best midfielder in the world when healthy. Lamine Yamal, injury permitting, is the most exciting 17-year-old the sport has seen in a generation. Their system is suffocating, their depth is unmatched, and their belief heading into this final is absolute.

JPM Picks Final Call: Spain wins the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

La Roja lift the trophy in New Jersey on July 19th. England waits another four years.

One Last Thing Before You Go

Here is a question for the JPM Picks readers who made it this far.

All three host nations -- the United States, Mexico and Canada -- are going home in the Round of 16. If you are an American fan sitting at home after the US goes out, who are you adopting as your team for the rest of the tournament? Are you riding with England trying to end 60 years of hurt? Jumping on the Messi farewell tour with Argentina? Backing the Colombian underdog? Pulling for Brazil to bring it home for the first time since 2002?

Drop your answer in the comments. Pick ‘em Paul wants to know.

As I got further into options trading, I started wondering whether there was a way to collect extra premium without taking on a ton of extra risk.

It turns out there is. But it comes with conditions. And it only works if you already understand the basics of how covered calls and cash-secured puts function. If you are still fuzzy on those, the Options 101 post is the place to start.

If you are comfortable with the wheel strategy and you want to look at a variation that can accelerate cost basis reduction in a flat market, keep reading.

What I want to roll through today is the covered strangle.

What Is a Covered Strangle?

Let me build it piece by piece.

You already know what a covered call is. You own 100 shares, you sell a call above the current price, and you collect premium in exchange for agreeing to sell your shares at the strike if the stock runs up past it.

You already know what a cash-secured put is. You set cash aside in your account, you sell a put below the current price, and you collect premium in exchange for agreeing to buy 100 shares at the strike if the stock drops below it.

A covered strangle is just both of those happening at the same time.

• You own 100 shares

• You sell an out-of-the-money call above the current price (covered by your shares)

• You sell an out-of-the-money put below the current price (cash-secured by money sitting in your account)

Two contracts open at once. Two premiums collected on the same trade. Same stock. Same expiration date.

I really like this strategy because it does not require a margin account, at least in my experience with Robinhood and Schwab. I refuse to use margin accounts because they tend to push investors and traders toward taking on more risk than they are actually comfortable with. The leverage feels free until it is not, and I have seen too many people blow up a good process by borrowing their way into a bad position. That is not what JPM Picks is about.

The reason no margin is needed comes down to how the two sides of the trade are collateralized. The call is covered because you own the shares. The put is cash-secured because you have the money sitting in your account to back it. No borrowed capital. No brokerage leverage. Just real collateral on both sides.

The Part That Makes This Work: One Direction

Here is the core insight that makes the covered strangle more interesting than it sounds at first.

A stock can only finish in one place at expiration.

Your put strike is below the current price. Your call strike is above it. The stock will either close above the call strike, below the put strike, or somewhere in between. It cannot be in two places at once. Which means you cannot be assigned on both sides simultaneously.

Let that land for a second. You collected premium from two contracts, but only one of them can ever be assigned.

That is the key. The covered strangle is not a way to take on double the risk. It is a way to collect double the premium while only one side can ever turn into an obligation at expiration.

The Three Outcomes

What actually happens depending on where the stock closes.

Outcome One: The Stock Runs Up Past the Call Strike

Your shares get called away at the call strike. You collect the sale proceeds plus the call premium. The put expires worthless, and you keep that premium too.

You are no longer in the trade. You have cash, two rounds of premium, and a clean exit. Not a bad result.

Outcome Two: The Stock Stays Flat (The Dream Scenario)

This is the one that makes the covered strangle genuinely exciting.

Both options expire worthless. You keep your 100 shares. You keep the call premium. You keep the put premium. No assignment on either side.

In a flat or slow-moving market, that double premium hits your cost basis from both directions at once. If your shares cost you $50 each and you collected $0.60 in call premium and $0.80 in put premium, your effective cost basis just dropped from $50 to $48.60 in one expiration cycle. Run that a few times and you start to see why this strategy is interesting for people who want to hold a position long-term.

Outcome Three: The Stock Drops Below the Put Strike

The put gets assigned. You buy 100 more shares at the put strike. The call expires worthless.

You still keep both premiums, which softens the effective entry price on the new shares. But now you own 200 shares of a stock that is trading lower. That is the real risk here, and you should not look past it casually.

This is why the covered strangle only makes sense on stocks you would genuinely be comfortable adding to. Not stocks you are already nervous about. Not stocks where you would panic at 200 shares if the price kept dipping.

Why I Like It (And When I Use It)

The wheel strategy is my foundation. Cash-secured puts to enter, covered calls once I own shares, repeat.

The covered strangle is a variation I layer in when a few conditions line up. The stock needs to be one I already own and believe in. The premiums on both sides need to make sense for the strikes I am comfortable with. And I need to be honest with myself about whether I would be okay with owning more shares if the put gets triggered.

The flat market scenario is where this really shines. In a sideways environment where stocks are not moving much, a standard covered call collects one round of premium. The covered strangle collects two. For a position I plan to hold long-term regardless, doubling the premium income in a quiet week is not a small thing. It adds up, especially over multiple cycles.

The reason I can do this without a margin account is worth repeating. The call is covered by shares I already own. The put is backed by cash I have set aside. Both sides have real collateral. That is fundamentally different from a spread strategy, which uses one option to partially offset the risk of another and typically requires margin approval from your broker.

If your brokerage does not allow spreads, the covered strangle may still be available to you if you have the shares and the cash. Worth checking.

A Live Example: What This Looks Like in Practice

I do not want to just explain this in the abstract, so here is what I am actually looking at this week.

If you were reading JPM Picks back in February, you might remember the post titled I’m Underwater on $SNAP and I’m Still Bullish. That was one of the most-read posts on this Substack, and the short version was this: I owned shares, I was underwater, I still believed in the stock, and my plan was to sell covered calls to grind down my cost basis while I waited.

That plan has been working. As of this writing, $SNAP is sitting at $6.03, and my cost basis is right at $6. I am no longer underwater. I am just barely above water, which feels a lot better than where this thing started.

Now, with earnings recently reported and no major catalysts expected in the next 30 days, I am looking at the next evolution of this trade: the covered strangle. An earnings event can blow through your strikes in a hurry, so I want the calendar clear before I set up both legs.

Here is the plan for building the covered strangle in two legs.

Leg One, the covered call: If $SNAP opens green on Monday, I will sell a covered call at either the $6.50 or $7.00 strike expiring June 18th. Which strike I pick will depend on where the stock opens and what the premium looks like at that moment. Both are above my cost basis, so either is a price I would be okay selling at.

Leg Two, the cash-secured put: If $SNAP opens red on Monday, I will sell the $5 cash-secured put expiring June 18th instead and look for a green day later in the week to add the covered call. If the stock opens green and I sell the call first, I will look for a red day during the week to complete the put leg.

The point is that I am staging both entries based on what the market gives me. A green open means richer call premium. A red open means richer put premium. I want both legs entered into favorable conditions, not both placed at the same time just because the timing is convenient.

If the stock stays flat through June 18th and both options expire worthless, I collect premium from both sides, keep my shares, and my cost basis drops further below $6. That is the scenario I am rooting for. And if one side gets assigned, I have already decided I am okay with either outcome: selling my shares at $6.50 or $7 or buying more at $5.

I will follow up on this trade in a future post once the positions are fully set.

The One Rule That Keeps It Honest

Before you run a covered strangle, answer this question.

Would I be okay owning 200 shares of this stock if things went sideways?

Not a rhetorical question. A real one.

If the answer is yes, the covered strangle is worth considering. If the answer is anything else, the regular wheel is the right move. The second lot of premium is only worth having if you are genuinely prepared for what it costs when the put gets assigned.

The strategy works best when you combine it with strike discipline. Do not sell the put at a strike you would not have sold anyway. Do not sell the call at a strike you would not have sold anyway. If both positions hold up on their own, the combination should too.

The Pick ‘em Paul Bottom Line

The covered strangle is not a magic trick. It is a logical extension of strategies you already understand.

You own shares. You sell a call. You also sell a put. You collect premium from both. The stock only closes in one place, so only one side can trigger. If the stock stays flat, you collect both and hold your position. If you get assigned on the put, you were already okay owning more.

It accelerates cost basis reduction in slow markets. It does not require margin. And it fits naturally inside the wheel framework for anyone who is already comfortable with covered calls and cash-secured puts.

Like every options strategy, it is not for everyone, and it is not for every stock. But if you have been running the wheel for a while and you are looking for a logical next step, the covered strangle is worth understanding.

Pick ‘em Paul Rule: The covered strangle rewards patience and flat markets. The double premium is the upside. Owning more shares of a falling stock is the risk. Know which one you are prepared for before you place the trade.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always do your own homework and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

Are you running covered calls or cash-secured puts already? Have you ever tried combining them at the same time? Hit reply and let me know what your experience has been.

Back in February, I told you Atlanta was being slept on at +200 while the market chased the Mets and their shiny new rotation piece. I told you Houston’s dynasty tax was inflated and their window was closed. I told you the NL Central was going to be more interesting than anyone was giving it credit for. And I told you, with full transparency, that I had a futures ticket on my own Brewers to finish under 84.5 wins.

One month in. Time to check the work.

The Hit: Atlanta Is the Best Team in Baseball

Twenty-four wins and ten losses. That is quietly the best record in baseball right now, better than the Dodgers, better than the Yankees, better than everyone. Atlanta at +200 in February was the call I believed in more than any other pick in this preview, and one month in, that bet is looking like it might be the best value I have found since the “lost ticket”.

Chris Sale is a big part of why. The reigning Cy Young winner is 6-1 with a 2.14 ERA through seven starts. He is not showing any signs of slowing down, and he is the clearest example of what a true ace looks like one month into a season. Six wins already. Keep that number in mind, it comes back up when we get to Milwaukee.

The market was looking at the Mets’ offseason moves and the Phillies’ consistency and forgot to check on the reigning NL powerhouse sitting right there in the same division. Atlanta is not an afterthought. Right now, they are the standard.

The Scoreboard: Division by Division

Let’s run through the full card.

NL East: Braves Leading, Mets Struggling

My pick: Atlanta +200. Result: Leading the division at 24-10, best record in baseball. The Mets, who the market loved at +170, sit at 11-22. That is one of the worst records in the entire league. I said fade the noise around New York’s offseason moves. So far, that was the right call.

NL Central: The Best Division in Baseball

My pick: Cincinnati Reds +400. Current result: The Reds are 20-14 and playing well, but they sit in third place because every single team in this division is above .500 right now. All five. The Cubs are leading at 21-12, and if you want to argue that is an early miss on my part, I understand it. What I will not back down from is the bigger point: I said this division would be more interesting than the market was pricing in February, and I was right about that. The NL Central is the best division in baseball through one month, and the Reds are very much in it.

NL West: Dodgers Doing Dodger Things

My pick: Dodgers -600. Current result: Leading the division at 20-13. No surprises here. The whole point of picking LA was not to find value on a winner, it was intellectual honesty about what the best organization in baseball looks like. Still on track.

AL East: The Yankees Got Hot, Toronto Did Not

My pick: Toronto Blue Jays +255. Current result: The Yankees are running the division at 22-11 and the Blue Jays are sitting at 16-17. This one is a miss through one month. Toronto was the defending AL pennant winner and I believed the unfinished business narrative. The Yankees are making them look like they finished their business already. I am not ready to say the Blue Jays are dead in April, but this is not the start they needed.

AL Central: Cleveland Is Cleveland

My pick: Detroit Tigers +130. Current result: Cleveland is leading at 18-16, Detroit is right behind at 17-17. The Tigers are not cooked, they are in the thick of it, but they are not leading the division the way I projected. Cleveland being competitive is exactly what I said in the preview, they are “perpetually underrated, perpetually competitive.” Consider that part of the take validated. The division pick is murkier.

AL West: The Mariners Are Treading Water

My pick: Seattle Mariners +120. Current result: The Mariners are 16-18 and not leading the division. This is another miss through one month. I said Seattle felt different this year. Right now it feels exactly the same as every other year in Seattle. Plenty of season left, but this is not the start I was looking for.

The Houston Fade: Confirmed

Houston is 13-21. I said the dynasty was over and the market was pricing legacy instead of the actual 2026 roster. The scoreboard agrees. The Astros are not a contender right now, they are a warning about what happens when a dynasty ages and you keep paying for the brand. Fade confirmed.

The Complicated One: My Brewers, The Miz, and a Futures Ticket That Is Sweating

Okay. Let’s talk about Milwaukee.

The Brewers are 18-15, which is above .500, which is a problem for my under 84.5 wins futures ticket. I laid out the honest case against them in February: losing Freddy Peralta hurt, Woodruff was a question mark, and the league was going to have a full offseason of tape on Jacob Misiorowski. I said hitters adjust, that’s baseball.

Here’s where I was partially right: Misiorowski is 2-2. Compare that to Chris Sale, the guy I just spent a section praising, who is 6-1 right now. That is what a true ace looks like in the win column in late April. The Miz has the stuff. Through six starts he leads all of baseball with 590strikeouts and his velocity is genuinely in a class of its own, the man is throwing 102 mile per hour heaters and breaking records with them. But wins are wins, and 2-2 through six starts is not ace territory yet.

In fairness to Misiorowski, the hitters have not fully figured him out. His ERA and strikeout numbers suggest the league is not exactly sitting on his pitches yet. The adjustment I predicted has not fully materialized. I’ll call that a partial hit rather than a confirmed prediction.

Now for the part where the Brewers universe does exactly what the Brewers universe does.

Brandon Woodruff is on the 15-day IL. Of course he is. I said in February that nobody knew if he was the same guy until we saw him healthy and pitching. He is currently neither of those things. And as of May 1st, Misiorowski left his start against the Nationals with a right hamstring cramp after throwing five and a third hitless innings. The rotation concerns I flagged before the season even started are playing out in real time.

Now here is the part I did not tell you about in February.

I have been placing individual game bets on the Brewers to win throughout April. Hedging my own futures ticket. Rooting for them as a fan while betting against their season win total. Both things at the same time. That is so perfectly Pick ‘em Paul that I am not even embarrassed about it. The futures ticket is a small bet. I genuinely do not lose sleep over it. But I will admit I have been enjoying cheering for Milwaukee wins again instead of quietly hoping they lose a few.

And then the injury reports started coming in. And suddenly my under ticket is perking up and looking at me like, “were you worried? I had this the whole time.”

The Brewers injury woes just noticed my futures bet. Here we go.

The Big Picture: Still Dodgers over Tigers

Los Angeles is 20-13 and leading the NL West. Detroit is 17-17 and very much alive in the AL Central. My World Series pick, Dodgers over Tigers, is still standing. Neither team has done anything to make me walk it back.

The Yankees at 22-11 are the most interesting wrinkle in the AL picture right now. If they hold this pace, the Tigers will need a wild card path to the World Series rather than a division title run. That is a harder road, but it is not a closed one. October is a long way from May.

The Dodgers are the Dodgers. Until someone on that roster goes down hard, the pick stands.

The Honest Scorecard

Clear hits: Atlanta, Houston fade, NL Central being the best division in baseball.

Clear misses through one month: Toronto, Seattle.

Still in play: Detroit, Dodgers World Series pick, the Reds being a legitimate contender.

Actively sweating: the Brewers under 84.5 wins ticket, which is either going to look very smart or very overdue depending on how the rotation holds up.

We will do this again at the All-Star break with a full mid-season report. By then we will know a lot more about whether Toronto and Detroit are real contenders, whether the Reds can hold pace in the NL Central, and whether Woodruff ever actually pitches again in 2026.

How is your April looking? Drop your best and worst call in the comments. I showed you mine.

My aunt and uncle met at Abbott Laboratories. He was in a testing role. She was in a testing role. Somewhere between the reagents and the results, they figured out they liked each other more than the job.

That was 29 years ago. My uncle still works there. Thirty-five years and counting.

I’ve always said, be careful who you talk to at work, you might end up married. My wife and I met at work too. Twenty-one years in, and she still puts up with me, most days.

So, when $ABT started showing up in my options screening, it was not a cold introduction. This is a company I’ve watched from a distance for a long time. Not just because of my family, but because Abbott is a Dividend King, a company that has raised its dividend for at least 50 consecutive years. Abbott has done it for 54 straight years. When a company has been writing bigger checks to shareholders longer than most people have been in the workforce, you pay attention to it.

I also spent years in the supplement industry, and Abbott acquired EAS back in 2004. EAS had a product called Betagen that I genuinely respected. That acquisition always stuck with me as a reminder that Abbott has a long history of buying quality and integrating it into something bigger. Whether that history applies to their latest big move is exactly what we are going to talk about.

Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice. Bet responsibly and never risk money you can’t afford to lose.

What Abbott Actually Is

Before we get into the trade and the mess, here is a quick frame on the company.

Abbott Laboratories is a diversified healthcare giant. They operate across four segments: medical devices (cardiovascular, diabetes management), diagnostics, nutrition (Ensure, Similac, they discontinued my beloved EAS in 2018), and established pharmaceuticals in international markets. About 60% of their sales come from outside the United States. Their market cap sits around $168 billion.

This is not a speculative name. This is a company that has been compounding for decades and has earned every bit of its blue-chip reputation.

Which makes what has happened to the stock in 2026 worth understanding.

The Trade

Abbott reported Q1 2026 earnings before the market opened on April 16th. Here is the short version of what happened.

EPS came in at $1.15, a penny better than Wall Street expected. Revenue came in at $11.37 billion, up nearly 7% year over year, but just shy of the consensus estimate of $11.40 billion. A $30 million miss on the top line is not normally a catastrophe, but the market did not stop there.

The real issue was guidance. Abbott cut its full-year adjusted EPS forecast from a range of $5.55-$5.80 down to $5.38-$5.58. That revision is almost entirely driven by the dilution impact from their $23 billion acquisition of Exact Sciences, the company behind the Cologuard colon cancer screening test. The deal closed earlier than expected, which is technically good news about the transaction itself, but it loaded debt onto the balance sheet sooner than Wall Street had modeled.

The stock had closed at $101.56 on April 15th. By the time the market closed on April 16th, it was down 6%.

I saw a stock that had just beaten on earnings falling hard on a red day. My playbook says sell puts on red days because the premium tends to be richer when fear is up. So I sold the $91 put expiring May 15th for $1.21 in premium. The stock was around $96 when I pulled the trigger.

As of today, $ABT is sitting at $91.49. Nineteen days left.

I’m watching this one closely.

Why the Stock Is Actually Down

The earnings day drop was the most recent chapter, but the story started earlier. $ABT is down roughly 23% year to date and has pulled back more than 35% from its 52-week high near $136. That is not a one-day earnings reaction. That is a sustained re-rating.

Here is what is driving it:

The Exact Sciences acquisition is the biggest cloud. The $23 billion deal positions Abbott as a leader in oncology diagnostics, and CEO Robert Ford called it another high-growth addition to the portfolio. But acquisitions this size come with integration costs, added debt, and short-term EPS dilution. The market priced that in aggressively.

The nutrition segment is struggling. Q1 nutrition revenue fell 6% overall, with pediatric nutrition down 8.5%. Ensure and Similac are household names, but that part of the business is not growing right now.

NEC litigation is a real risk. An Illinois jury awarded $70 million in damages to families who alleged that Abbott’s Similac Special Care 24 formula caused necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants. Abbott is appealing, and the judgment came through an established legal process rather than out of nowhere, but more cases are pending. That kind of overhang weighs on any stock, especially a name that has built its reputation on reliability.

Tariffs are adding noise. Abbott committed $500 million to expand U.S. manufacturing in Illinois and Texas to reduce exposure over time, but the near-term cost headwinds are expected to persist through at least the first half of this year.

And on April 22nd, Daiwa downgraded $ABT from Outperform to Neutral, citing near-term headwinds in the medical devices segment. The stock dropped another 1.1% that day and pushed toward its 52-week low of $91.59. That is a real wall of worry. I am not going to pretend it is not.

What the TSIM Says (And Where It Gets Interesting)

I ran Abbott through the Turner Street Investment Model, and this is where it gets honest and a little uncomfortable at the same time.

The TSIM produces a JPM Picks target price of $85.85. The stock is currently at $91.49. That means, by my own model, I sold a put at a strike price that my framework says might not even represent fair value yet.

I will own that. That is the position I am in.

But here is what makes this more interesting than just a bad trade thesis. Look at how the six pillars actually scored:

Fundamentals: 6.61 | Analyst: 8.31 | Technical: 2.00 | Market Implied: 6.18 | Relative Value: 7.74 | Forecast: 8.55

Composite Score: 5.56

Five of the six pillars are telling a constructive story. The Analyst score at 8.31 reflects a consensus target near $120 across 28 analysts, most of whom maintain Buy or Strong Buy ratings. The Forecast score at 8.55 says the probability-weighted scenario analysis likes the stock’s forward setup. The Relative Value score at 7.74 says Abbott looks cheap relative to its peers right now.

And then there is the Technical score.

A 2 out of 10.

The chart on $ABT is broken. The stock is trading well below its 200-day moving average, which sits near $122. The RSI hit 25 last week, putting it in the extremely oversold category. An RSI of 25 does not automatically mean buy, but it does mean the selling has been aggressive and sustained. It also means the technical picture alone is enough to drag a composite score down hard.

The model composite lands at 5.56, right in the Hold or Watch zone. The model is not screaming buy. It is also not screaming sell. It is saying: the fundamentals and the analyst community see real value here, the chart is a wreck, and the truth probably lives somewhere in between. That is the tension this trade is sitting inside.

The Bull Case

Here is where I land after all of it.

Abbott is a franchise. Fifty-four consecutive years of dividend increases does not happen by accident. You do not build that record without a real underlying business and real management discipline. My uncle has given 35 years of his career to this company. That is not the kind of institution that collapses because of one rough acquisition cycle.

The Exact Sciences deal is a long-term bet on oncology diagnostics, one of the fastest-growing areas in healthcare. Cologuard has real market penetration and genuine upside. The market is valuing that upside at distressed prices right now because of short-term EPS dilution. That trade often looks wrong before it looks right.

The analyst community at 8.31 knows more than I do. I am going to say that out loud because it is true. When 28 analysts covering the same company are pointing to a consensus target around $120 and the stock is trading at $91, the gap is worth acknowledging. Analysts have been wrong before, but that kind of alignment is not nothing.

Is this a flawless setup? No. Is this a quality company going through a difficult stretch that the market is pricing like something more permanent? That is the case I am making.

The Plan Going Forward

Here is exactly where I am on the $91 put with 19 days left.

If the stock moves back into positive territory on my position, I close it for a smaller profit and move on. Premium in the pocket, lesson learned about strike selection relative to what my own model was saying, next trade.

If I cannot close it for a gain and we are sitting at or near the strike close to expiration, I will look to roll the position down toward the $85 level and try to collect a net premium credit in the process. That gets my effective exposure closer to what the TSIM actually says is fair value territory.

And if neither of those works out and I end up assigned at $91, I am genuinely okay owning this stock. If this position turns into share ownership, I sell covered calls along the way to grind down the cost basis. That is the JPM Picks way. The wheel does not stop just because the first spin went sideways.

The JPM Take

I am in a put I probably should not have entered at that strike according to my own model, that is the honest version. The TSIM said $85.85 and I sold a $91 put. The model is still in the testing phase, which is exactly why it is called V3 and not the final word.

But I am not convinced the model is telling me to panic either. Five of six pillars see real value here. The Analyst and Forecast scores, two of the most forward-looking pillars in the framework, both land in the 8s. What is broken is the chart, and charts do not stay broken forever on companies with 54 years of consecutive dividend increases and a management team still buying back shares at these levels.

Quality companies go on sale sometimes. Abbott is on sale.

Whether the sale is over or has more to go is the honest question I cannot answer with certainty. What I can give you is the plan, the position, and where the data actually points. The rest is process.

I will update you when this one resolves, one way or another. (Follow me on X for updates)

Watching $ABT closely and thinking about your own put or covered call setup? Hit reply. I want to hear how you are thinking about it.

As a sports fan, I have dreamed about two jobs my entire life.

The first one is NFL general manager. I wrote about that a few months back when I played pretend Raiders GM for an offseason and laid out exactly how I would have spent their mountain of cap space and draft capital. Spoiler: none of it happened. The Maxx Crosby trade with Baltimore fell apart. The grand pick-trading vision never materialized. The Raiders signed Kirk Cousins and are going to ride him until Fernando Mendoza is ready. It was a perfectly reasonable outcome that I did not predict.

The second dream job is Mel Kiper Jr.’s for ESPN.

I have been watching Mel Kiper break down draft prospects since I was twelve or thirteen years old. Back when ESPN would run four hours of pre-draft coverage and half of it was just Kiper pointing at a screen and saying words that sounded important. I did not understand most of it at the time. I watched anyway. There is something about that job, the obsessive scouting, the willingness to make 32 public predictions and get half of them wrong with complete confidence, that I have always found genuinely compelling.

So here we are. My first public mock draft.

I want to be clear about what this is and what it is not. I am not a scout. I have not been to a single pro day or combine interview. My opinions on these prospects are informed by three of the best mock drafts currently published, watching a lot of college football, and a healthy amount of reading other articles I wish I could get paid to write. What I am offering is a first-round prediction from someone who has followed this process obsessively for over twenty years as an amateur and is doing it in public for the first time.

Some of these will be right. Some will be wrong. That is the deal.

Quick note: Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice.

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Before We Get to the Picks: One Confirmed Trade, One I Am Predicting

Draft day is never just 32 picks in order, and this one already had a significant move before anyone walked to a podium. One trade is done and baked into my board. One is a prediction I feel confident enough to build around.

The Cowboys move up to get Sonny Styles (my prediction). Dallas needs defensive help badly. They allowed 30 points per game last season, the worst mark in the NFL. Styles is the most versatile defensive piece in this class, and I do not think the Cowboys are waiting until picks 12 and 20 to get him. In this projection, Dallas trades those two picks to Cleveland in exchange for the Browns’ sixth overall selection and a late-round pick. Cleveland ends up with three first-round picks. Jerry Jones ends up with the linebacker he actually wanted.

The Giants get a second first-round pick from Cincinnati. The Bengals traded Pro Bowl defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence to New York before the draft, picking up the Giants’ tenth overall selection in return. The Bengals presumably wanted to replace Trey Hendrickson’s production after he left for Baltimore. The Giants now hold picks five and ten and can address two different needs on one night.

I am not predicting additional trades beyond the Cowboys deal because I am not comfortable doing that as an amateur mock drafter. There will be more on Thursday. There always are.

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The Picks

1. Las Vegas Raiders: Fernando Mendoza, QB, Indiana

I spent a lot of words a few months ago arguing the Raiders should trade this pick and wait for the 2027 quarterback class. Then the Maxx Crosby deal collapsed, the extra assets never materialized, and reality did what it usually does to a well-reasoned plan. Mendoza is the right pick here and I know it. He is accurate, smart, and ready to learn behind Kirk Cousins before eventually taking over. I still think the 2027 quarterback class is historically loaded. I also think Fernando Mendoza is a good football player who deserved to go first overall. Both things are true. Welcome to Las Vegas.

2. New York Jets: Arvell Reese, LB/edge, Ohio State

The Jets take the most versatile front-seven prospect in the class and immediately the question begins. Is this another Jets bust? Reese has first-team All-American production and the kind of athletic profile that makes defensive coordinators smile. He can rush the passer, drop into coverage, and set the edge. The Jets will give him every opportunity to succeed. Whether that matters is a different conversation. This is the right pick. History is just loud in New York.

3. Arizona Cardinals: David Bailey, edge, Texas Tech

Bailey led the FBS in pressure rate last season and is about as polished a pass rusher as this class has to offer. Arizona needs juice off the edge in a division that still includes Matt Stafford, Sam Darnold, and Brock Purdy. This makes too much sense to overthink.

4. Tennessee Titans: Jeremiyah Love, RB, Notre Dame

A running back in the top five certainly raises eyebrows. Love is not a traditional running back. He is a game-breaking weapon who can operate out of the backfield, flex wide, and create on contact. Pairing him with Cam Ward gives the Titans an identity on offense they have not had in years.

5. New York Giants: Caleb Downs, S, Ohio State

This would be the first safety taken in the top five in over a decade and it would be worth it. Downs is the smartest defensive player in this class. He reads offenses the way quarterbacks read defenses, which is the rarest trait in the secondary. John Harbaugh-coached teams always maximize that kind of player.

6. Dallas Cowboys (via trade with Cleveland): Sonny Styles, LB, Ohio State

This is why I believe in the Cowboys moving up. Styles should not be available at six and probably will not be in real life. If Dallas executes this trade, they get the most athletic linebacker prospect in years for a defense that was historically bad last season. The Cowboys did not fix that problem in free agency. This is how they fix it.

7. Washington Commanders: Carnell Tate, WR, Ohio State

Tate is a clean route runner with legitimate big-play ability and Washington gets him opposite Terry McLaurin. Jayden Daniels now has two legitimate weapons on the outside. The Commanders offense suddenly looks very different than it did at the end of last season.

8. New Orleans Saints: Rueben Bain Jr., DE, Miami

The arm length concerns are real. His production and power are also real. The Saints need edge juice and Bain is capable of being a Day 1 contributor even if the path to dominance is not perfectly straight. I think the risk is worth it at eight.

9. Kansas City Chiefs: Jordyn Tyson, WR, Arizona State

Patrick Mahomes is working back from a torn ACL and the Chiefs offense desperately needs reliable pass catchers beyond Rashee Rice. Tyson has missed time due to injuries in college, so there is risk here, but when he has been healthy he is elite. Mahomes buying time and finding Tyson in the back of the end zone is a thing I want to see happen.

10. New York Giants (via Cincinnati): Francis Mauigoa, OT, Miami

After going defense at five, the Giants use their second first-round pick on the offensive line. Mauigoa has started over forty games in college and projects as a long-term anchor at either tackle or guard. The Giants come away from the top ten with a safety and a blocker. That is a good night.

11. Miami Dolphins: Spencer Fano, OL, Utah

Miami traded away Jaylen Waddle and needs playmakers, but the offensive line situation is the more pressing priority with Malik Willis now under center. Fano is the best all-around blocker in this class and fits exactly the zone-run system Miami wants to run. The foundation has to be there before anything else matters.

12. Cleveland Browns (via trade with Dallas): Kadyn Proctor, OT, Alabama

Cleveland trades down, collects two more first-round picks, and still lands a premium offensive tackle prospect. Proctor has the physical traits of a franchise left tackle. The technique needs work, but the Browns’ offensive line room has the coaching to develop him. This is a good outcome for Cleveland even after moving down.

13. Los Angeles Rams (via Atlanta): Monroe Freeling, OT, Georgia

The Rams are in win-now mode with Matthew Stafford, and Freeling’s combination of size and athleticism makes him a legitimate top-ten talent playing in the thirteenth slot. Les Snead does not overthink value when it falls to him. This does not feel like an overthought pick.

14. Baltimore Ravens: Olaivavega Ioane, G, Penn State

The Ravens lost Tyler Linderbaum to Las Vegas in free agency. That is a significant hole to fill in front of Lamar Jackson. Ioane is the cleanest interior offensive line prospect in the draft. He will not replace Linderbaum directly, but he will help stabilize a unit that cannot afford to be the weak link on a championship-caliber team.

15. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Kenyon Sadiq, TE, Oregon

Sadiq ran a 4.39 at the combine at 241 pounds. He had one of the best athletic showings of any tight end prospect in recent draft history. Zac Robinson’s offense in Tampa Bay is going to run two-tight-end sets. Cade Otton and Sadiq on the field at the same time is a legitimate nightmare for opposing linebackers.

16. New York Jets (via Indianapolis): Omar Cooper Jr., WR, Indiana

After going defense at two, the Jets use their second first-round pick on a weapon for Geno Smith. Cooper was Fernando Mendoza’s favorite target during Indiana’s national championship run. He is fast, physical, and reliable in traffic. The Jets’ receiving corps was genuinely empty last year. This helps.

17. Detroit Lions: Blake Miller, OT, Clemson

Taylor Decker is gone and the Lions need a replacement at left tackle so Penei Sewell can slide to his natural side. Miller has started every game since he arrived at Clemson, fifty-four total. He is the kind of offensive lineman Detroit’s culture was built to maximize.

18. Minnesota Vikings: Dillon Thieneman, S, Oregon

Eight career interceptions. Plays both safety spots. Natural fit in Brian Flores’s defense. Minnesota has been planning for life after Harrison Smith for two years. Thieneman is the answer they have been waiting for.

19. Carolina Panthers: KC Concepcion, WR, Texas A&M

Concepcion is a playmaker after the catch in a way that Carolina’s offense has been missing. Tetairoa McMillan was a great pick last year. Concepcion next to him gives Bryce Young two dynamic options and legitimate reason for optimism heading into 2026.

20. Cleveland Browns (originally Green Bay Packers via Dallas Cowboys): Denzel Boston, WR, Washington

I need to pause here for a moment.

This pick belongs to the Browns because the Cowboys traded it to Cleveland as part of the Sonny Styles deal. And it belongs to the Cowboys because Green Bay traded it to Dallas as part of the Micah Parsons trade.

Which means my first mock draft on JPM Picks does not include a single Green Bay Packers selection in the first round. I am a lifelong Packers fan writing a mock draft in which my team is completely absent from the Thursday night conversation. This is fine. Everything is fine.

Boston had eleven touchdowns last season and gives Cleveland the WR1 they have been looking for. This is a good pick. I am definitely fine.

21. Pittsburgh Steelers: Makai Lemon, WR, USC

The reigning Biletnikoff Award winner falls into the mid-twenties and the Steelers take him. Whoever is under center in Pittsburgh next season will have Lemon, DK Metcalf, and Michael Pittman Jr. to throw to. That is a real receiving corps.

22. Los Angeles Chargers: Akheem Mesidor, edge, Miami

Mesidor is older for a prospect and has some injury history. He is also as physically ready as any edge rusher in this class and can contribute as a three-down player immediately. Jim Harbaugh teams are built on the line of scrimmage. Mesidor fits that identity.

23. Philadelphia Eagles: Max Iheanachor, OT, Arizona State

Lane Johnson is 36 years old. Iheanachor has the tools to eventually be his successor and is landing in the best possible developmental situation in the NFL. The Eagles do not waste high picks on offensive linemen who cannot eventually start.

24. Cleveland Browns (via Jacksonville): Jermod McCoy, CB, Tennessee

Cleveland leaves round one with three picks and addresses three legitimate needs. McCoy has not played since tearing his ACL in January 2025, but his pre-injury tape showed a top-ten talent. His pro day run quieted most of the durability questions. The Browns are betting on the talent being worth the wait.

25. Chicago Bears: Zion Young, DE, Missouri

Montez Sweat needs a running mate. Young generated 6.5 sacks and 46 pressures last season. The Bears have not used a top-fifty pick on an edge rusher since 2016. The timing on this one makes sense.

26. Buffalo Bills: Keldric Faulk, edge, Auburn

Faulk is young, long, and scheme-versatile in a way that works alongside Greg Rousseau and Bradley Chubb. His 2025 sack numbers were down from the year before, but his physical tools are legitimate. Buffalo bets on development and has the defensive infrastructure to make it work.

27. San Francisco 49ers: Caleb Lomu, OT, Utah

Trent Williams is 38 years old heading into training camp. The 49ers need to start planning, and Lomu from Utah is athletic enough to play either tackle spot while developing behind one of the best offensive lines in football. This is a forward-looking pick that makes present-tense sense.

28. Houston Texans: Kayden McDonald, DT, Ohio State

An already elite Texans defense gets better on the interior. Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter on the outside need an interior that can win its own battles. McDonald is a powerful, ascending three-down defensive tackle who makes everyone around him better.

29. Kansas City Chiefs (via LA Rams): Colton Hood, CB, Tennessee

The Chiefs lost Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson from their cornerback room. Hood is long, physical, and experienced. He had seventeen pass breakups over the past two seasons. Kansas City gets their starting cornerback without having to reach for one earlier in the round.

30. Miami Dolphins (via Denver): Mansoor Delane, CB, LSU

The Dolphins allowed opposing quarterbacks to complete 72 percent of their passes last season. That was the worst mark in the NFL. Delane is a technically sound man-coverage corner with four years of college experience and twenty-seven career pass breakups. Getting him at thirty is genuine value for a secondary that needed a complete rebuild.

31. New England Patriots: Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, S, Toledo

McNeil-Warren is a hybrid defender at 6-foot-3 with the athleticism to cover tight ends and the instincts to blitz. He forced ten fumbles in four college seasons. New England’s defense has been in transition for two years. This is the kind of player who adds versatility to a unit that needs it.

32. Seattle Seahawks: Jadarian Price, RB, Notre Dame

Kenneth Walker III is in Kansas City. Zach Charbonnet is coming off a torn ACL. Seattle uses the last pick of the round to address a real need with a powerful, efficient runner who averaged six yards per carry in college and scored eleven touchdowns last year. The Seahawks close round one by doing exactly what they always do, finding value at a position other teams overlook.

---

The JPM Take

Two things about this exercise I want to be honest about.

First, the quarterback class. Ty Simpson is going to slide in this draft. I have him falling out of round one entirely, and I think the Cardinals should resist any temptation to trade into thirty for him. Arizona already has a high first-round pick coming next year, and the 2027 quarterback class, Arch Manning, Dante Moore, Julian Sayin, is shaping up to be historically loaded. If Simpson is available at thirty-four to open round two, take him there and keep your powder dry for 2027. If he falls even further, even better.

Second, the Browns quietly had one of the best mock draft nights I could construct. Three first-round picks. A tackle, a wide receiver, and a cornerback to address their three biggest needs. General managers who know how to trade down do not get enough credit. Andrew Berry is very good at this.

Thirty-two picks. One first public mock. All of it on the record.

If I nail twelve of them, I will feel like Mel Kiper. If I nail eight, I will feel like a guy who watched a lot of football and made educated guesses. Either way, we will know by Friday morning.

Good luck on your boards.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk more than you can afford to lose.

What is the pick you think I got most wrong? Hit reply and tell me. I can take it.

I Missed the Season Preview. Here’s Why.

JPM Picks didn’t launch on Substack until February.

That means I don’t have a full season preview to point back to. No preseason takes on record, no bold predictions from October that I can either crow about or quietly bury. I watched the season, I followed it, I had opinions. I just didn’t have a place to publish them yet.

What I do have is a lost futures ticket and a December receipt that is very much alive and, as it turns out, worth more today than the day I bought it. We will get to both.

The NHL playoffs are underway. Are you as excited as I am?

Quick note: Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice. Bet responsibly, keep it fun, and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

The Defending Champs Aren’t Here

Florida won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025, beating Edmonton both times. Then Aleksander Barkov tore his ACL and MCL in the preseason and missed every game of the regular season. Matthew Tkachuk had offseason surgery and didn’t return until January. By then it was too late.

The Panthers finished 15 points out of a playoff spot. That is how fast things move in the NHL. Two straight championships, one catastrophic injury to your captain, and you are watching the playoffs at home. Keep that in mind as you size up every team in this bracket. Depth matters, health matters, and it can all unravel faster than anyone expects.

Colorado Is the Favorite. I Had a Ticket at +850. I Think I Threw It Away.

Back on October 16th, I posted a screenshot on my X account of my futures ticket for the Colorado Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup. The price was +850.

That ticket is gone. I have looked everywhere and I am fairly certain it ended up in the trash at some point between October and now, which is the kind of thing that keeps a sports bettor up at night for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual game. For the record, I now have a special place for futures tickets instead of leaving them randomly on counters around my home.

So here is where I am at: I am only rooting for Colorado if that ticket somehow surfaces. Until then, I am evaluating them like any other team in this bracket.

Here is my honest evaluation. I am not a hockey guru, but they are the best team in the field. Nathan MacKinnon led the NHL with 53 goals. Cale Makar was, well, Cale Makar. They added Nazem Kadri back at the trade deadline for a reunion with the 2022 championship core. They were first in goals scored and first in goals allowed. On paper, this team is built to win.

The market agrees. Colorado sits at +290 on my board, the best odds to win. Now here is the problem with that number. Since 1985-86, 39 teams have finished with the NHL’s best regular season record. Only eight of them went on to win the Stanley Cup. An equal number of those Presidents’ Trophy winners lost in the opening round. The curse is documented, it is consistent, and it makes logical sense: the team that runs the hardest all regular season draws maximum attention from every opponent, carries the most wear, and faces the highest expectations when anything goes sideways in a seven-game series.

Am I telling you to fade Colorado entirely? Absolutely not. They draw the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1, a team that had fewer points than four clubs that didn’t even make the playoffs. That series is as favorable a bracket draw as it gets. But +290 on a historically cursed position, with no personal ticket riding on it anymore, is not where I am putting my money. The market is pricing Colorado like the Cup is already engraved. Forty years of history says pump the brakes.

The West Is a Gauntlet. That Is the Whole Point.

I have probably watched more Western Conference hockey this season than Eastern. I cannot fully explain it. The matchups pulled me that direction and I went with them.

What I know is that when I look at this bracket, the talent concentration in the West is unlike anything in the East. Colorado. Vegas. Edmonton. Dallas. Minnesota. Five teams that could each make a legitimate case for the conference title. To win the Western Conference in 2026, you are going to have to beat the best collection of teams in the bracket, probably over four brutal rounds.

The team that survives that is going to be the most battle-tested club in hockey. And the team waiting for them on the other side of the bracket is Tampa Bay at +400, with the best goalie in the field and the best offensive player in the Eastern Conference.

That is the setup. Keep it in mind as we go through the rest of this.

The Matchup That Could Be a Western Conference Final

Dallas finished third in the entire league with 112 points. Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston both scored 45 goals. Mikko Rantanen finished at 1.20 points per game. The Stars have been to the Western Conference finals three consecutive years and they know how to win when it matters.

Minnesota made the biggest midseason trade of the year by acquiring Quinn Hughes from Vancouver in December. The Wild then went 17-5-5 before the Olympic break. Kirill Kaprizov scored 45 goals. Matt Boldy had 42 right behind him. Hughes transforms what a defense can do offensively and the Wild are built around two elite scoring wingers who can take over any game they play.

The NHL’s division-based playoff structure put the third-best team in the league against the seventh-best team in the first round. If this were a traditional bracket, this matchup could be a Western Conference Final. Instead, one of these teams is going home before the second round even begins.

That is not a great format argument, but it is a great television argument. This is the most interesting first-round matchup in the bracket, and it is happening right now instead of in May where it belongs.

Minnesota leads the series 1-0 after Game 1. Watch this one closely. Both teams deserve better than a first-round exit.

The Dark Horse: Minnesota Wild at +1500

Full transparency, because that is what JPM Picks is built on.

I have a futures ticket on the Minnesota Wild to win the Stanley Cup. I bought it back in December at +2490. That ticket is alive and I know exactly where it is.

Here is where it gets interesting from a JPM Picks standpoint. That ticket has appreciated in value. In December, the market was pricing Minnesota at +2490. Today, the same bet only yields +1500. The implied probability has moved in my favor, which means the position I am holding is worth more now than the day I bought it. If you follow the options content on this Substack, you already understand what that means: I am sitting on a ticket with built-in edge versus current market pricing. The market has moved toward my strike. That is intrinsic value, and it is the same concept whether the underlying position is a stock or a sportsbook slip.

There is also a personal connection here beyond the ticket. Minnesota is geographically closer to JPM Picks HQ than any other team in this bracket. The company my wife works for happens to be a Wild sponsor, which means there is a household stake in this pick that goes well beyond whatever is printed on that December receipt.

None of that changes whether they are a good bet. But you deserve to know where I am sitting before I make the case.

Here is the case: the Wild are built around two of the best wingers in the league in Kaprizov and Boldy, with Quinn Hughes running a defense that can generate offense from the back end in a way Minnesota has never had before. They are hot, they are deep, and at +1500 the market is treating them like a team that got lucky to be there.

They drew Dallas in Round 1, which is a brutal first-round matchup. Game 1 went to Minnesota. If they get through it, they are dangerous. And if they somehow navigate the Western gauntlet, a Wild championship would be one of the better stories this sport has produced in years.

+1500 with a ticket already appreciating in my pocket and the whole house invested. That is the dark horse pick.

A Note on Edmonton

The Oilers are the team I rooted for the past two seasons. Connor McDavid finished the regular season with 138 points, leading the entire league. Leon Draisaitl has been dealing with a lower body injury and, according to ESPN, should return to the lineup sometime in the opening round of the playoffs.

That distinction matters. Edmonton with Draisaitl is a different team than Edmonton without him. They have been to two straight Stanley Cup Finals. They know how to win in the postseason when both stars are healthy and locked in. If Draisaitl comes back early in the first round, do not sleep on the Oilers.

The question is whether the defense and goaltending are good enough to carry them when the other 58 minutes are not McDavid and Draisaitl at full speed. That has been the concern all season. It does not go away in April.

The Vegas Story Nobody Is Leading With

Vegas fired head coach Bruce Cassidy with eight games left in the regular season and hired John Tortorella. Then they went 7-0-1. Carter Hart returned from injury and went 6-0-0 with a 1.66 goals-against average. Jack Eichel had 11 points in his last six games.

The Golden Knights are at +1000 on my board. A team playing its best hockey of the season heading into the playoffs, with Mitch Marner, with Jack Eichel, and with a coaching staff running on adrenaline with something to prove. They open against Utah, which is a winnable series.

I am not making them my Cup pick. But I am watching that price.

The Cup Pick: Tampa Bay Lightning at +400

Let me walk you through the Eastern bracket, because the path matters as much as the pick.

Tampa Bay faces Montreal in Round 1. Nikita Kucherov led the entire NHL with a 1.71 points-per-game average. Andrei Vasilevskiy led the league in wins and is the frontrunner for his second Vezina Trophy. Victor Hedman is not on the injury report as of this writing, which removes the one significant question mark that had me hedging on the Lightning earlier in the week. This is a complete, championship-caliber roster.

Montreal has a genuinely elite line in Caufield, Suzuki and Slafkovsky. But Tampa has the best goalie in this field. That series goes to the Lightning.

Round 2 in the East brings either Buffalo or Boston. Buffalo broke a 14-year playoff drought and the building in round one is electric. Boston is well-coached and has Jeremy Swayman in net. I think Tampa handles whoever comes out of that series. Kucherov against either of those defenses is a significant advantage, and Vasilevskiy in a seven-game series is a different variable than anything you face in the regular season.

Then there is Carolina, third favorite at +470 to win the Cup. Carolina leads Ottawa 1-0 after Game 1. Rod Brind’Amour has his deepest scoring roster in eight years behind that bench. The case for the Hurricanes on paper is real. But there is a pattern here that is hard to ignore: Carolina gets seeded high, the bracket opens up, expectations rise, and then something goes sideways. The goaltending situation heading into these playoffs is genuinely unsettled. When your biggest question mark is in net and you are a top seed, that is a difficult combination in a one-loss-and-you-examine-everything playoff environment.

Tampa beats Carolina in the Eastern Conference Final.

One more reason to like the Lightning that has nothing to do with analytics. Head coach Jon Cooper spent two seasons coaching the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers from 2008 to 2010. In his final season, he brought home the Clark Cup, the USHL championship. Green Bay is my hometown. I have been to more than a few Gamblers games through the years. Cooper took a winner out of Wisconsin before he built a dynasty in Tampa, and I am not going to pretend that does not matter at least a little.

That sets up the Lightning, with championship pedigree and the best goalie in the field, against whoever survives what is shaping up to be one of the most competitive Western conferences in recent memory.

Tampa Bay Lightning, +400. Written down before the puck dropped on Game 1.

One More Series Worth Watching

Philadelphia leads Pittsburgh 1-0 after Game 1. The Flyers are young, they have Trevor Zegras back and playing well, and Dan Vladar in net has been one of the quiet stories of the season. The Penguins have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin looking for one more run together. This series has enough history and enough desperation on both sides to be appointment viewing. Do not sleep on Philadelphia.

The JPM Take

Colorado is the best team in this field and the Presidents’ Trophy curse deserves real respect at +290. I had a ticket on them at +850 in October. It is gone and I have accepted that.

The West is a gauntlet. Colorado, Vegas, Edmonton, Dallas, and Minnesota are going to beat each other up for two months. The team that comes out of that is going to be tested in ways the Eastern Conference bracket simply cannot match. That is not a knock on the East. That is a compliment to the West.

Tampa Bay at +400 is built to beat that team. Kucherov, Vasilevskiy, Hedman healthy, and a coaching staff that has been to this stage before. The Lightning run the East, they beat Carolina in the conference final, and they are waiting in June for whoever crawls out of the Western gauntlet.

Minnesota at +1500 is the dark horse with a personal stake attached. The ticket is appreciating, the household is invested, and the Wild just took Game 1 from Dallas. If they get through this series, the story gets very interesting very fast.

Enjoy the playoffs.

Do you have a futures ticket still alive in this field? Hit reply and tell me which team. I want to know I am not the only one sitting on a slip from October that I cannot find.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

I want to tell you about a trade I made on a stock my own model told me to avoid.

That part matters, and I will get to it. But first, let me tell you what happened, because the result was one of the cleaner premium collection sequences I have run in a while. Two cash-secured puts. Two red-day entries. A combined premium just shy of 100% kept across both trades. (Closing early to reclaim capital does not mean leaving money on the table when you have already captured 98% of what was there.) And at no point did I own a single share of $NBIS.

That is the whole game I am going to walk you through today.

First, What Is $NBIS?

Nebius Group trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker $NBIS. If the name does not ring a bell, here is the short version: Nebius is a full-stack AI infrastructure company. They build and operate large-scale GPU clusters, cloud platforms, and developer tools designed specifically for AI workloads.

Think of them as picks and shovels for the AI boom. While the rest of the market debates which AI model wins, Nebius is building the infrastructure that all of them need. They are headquartered in Amsterdam and listed in New York, which makes them an interesting hybrid of European tech sensibility and American growth stock energy.

They also own a handful of other businesses you may not have heard of: Avride, which works on autonomous driving technology; Toloka, a data partner for AI development; and TripleTen, an edtech platform focused on reskilling people for tech careers.

The company was formerly known as Yandex before restructuring its ownership post-Russia sanctions. The new Nebius is a different animal than the old Yandex, but that backstory is part of why some investors have been slow to pay attention.

The reason the stock has been moving the way it has? A few things hit at once. Nebius signed a $27 billion deal with Meta to deploy computing capacity. They are reportedly pursuing an acquisition of AI21 Labs. And they are set to launch a 310 megawatt data center facility in Finland, which would be the largest in Europe. That is a lot of positive momentum stacking up in a short window.

The market has been repricing accordingly, and the 33% surge in shares following that wave of analyst coverage tells you how quickly sentiment can shift when a story starts to crystallize.

What My Model Said (And Why I Still Traded It)

Here is where I owe you some transparency.

I ran $NBIS through the Turner Street Investment Model after making these trades, and the TSIM came back with an avoid/sell rating. The primary reason is the P/E ratio. Yahoo Finance has it sitting at over 1,200. That is not a typo. When you plug a number like that into a model that weights fundamental valuation heavily, the score craters.

My TSIM target price on $NBIS is $102.50.

Here is where it gets interesting: both strike prices I used were below that target. The $85 strike and the $95 strike both sat underneath what my own model considers fair value, so I was not actually violating the core rule of cash-secured puts, which is that you only sell them at prices you would be genuinely comfortable owning the stock. My strikes were below my target. The model’s overall rating was negative, but the specific trades were still consistent with my framework.

I will be honest: I also just disagree with my own model on this one. That does not mean the model is broken. It means the P/E on a high-growth infrastructure company in the middle of signing billion-dollar contracts with Meta and pursuing an AI21 Labs acquisition is not the same kind of signal it would be on a mature business. A four-digit P/E on Nebius right now is a different data point than a four-digit P/E on a company with no growth runway.

For context: Wall Street analyst targets on $NBIS currently range from $129 to $215. The street is considerably more bullish than my $102.50 model price. That gap is worth naming, not defending. The model is telling me one thing, professional analysts with full research teams are telling me something else. I am not dismissing either view. I am just being transparent about where they diverge.

I am still trying to become a more disciplined trader. I am still developing the process. Part of that process is knowing when the model is capturing something real and when it is getting distorted by a single outlier input. The weights in the TSIM will continue to evolve as I gather more data.

Trade One: Selling Into the Red

March 5th, $NBIS closed at $95.65. The next morning it opened at $92.30. That is a meaningful overnight gap lower, and when a stock opens red like that on no news that changes the underlying thesis, the options market tends to overprice fear. Implied volatility picks up. Premiums get richer.

That is the spot I look for. Not random days. Red days on stocks I have already been watching.

On March 6th, I sold a cash-secured put at the $85 strike with an expiration date of March 20th. The stock was trading around $92 at the time, so I was about $7 out of the money. I collected a premium that represented a strong return on the capital set aside to back the trade, and I collected it that same day.

The stock never threatened $85. On March 20th, the put expired worthless. I kept every dollar of that premium.

That is the trade. No drama. No assignment. Just premium collected and capital returned.

Trade Two: Going Up the Chain

After the first put expired, $NBIS had moved. By March 25th the stock had closed at $115.09. The thesis was still intact, the stock was stronger, and I wanted to run the same play again.

The next morning, March 26th, $NBIS opened red again. At one point during the session it dipped as low as $105.41. Another fear-driven dip on a stock I had already been watching. Same setup, different level.

I sold a $95 put expiring April 10th and collected a solid premium in exchange. I moved up $10 from my first strike to reflect where the stock had traded. Both strikes remained below my TSIM target of $102.50, so I was still inside my own framework.

Then the stock ran.

By April 8th, $NBIS had gotten as high as $127.75. The $95 put I sold was nowhere near being threatened. At that point, I had already captured more than 98% of the original premium. The option had almost no value left.

On April 8th, I bought to close for $3.

Why Close Early When You Have 98% of the Premium?

This is a question worth slowing down on because it trips up a lot of beginners.

The remaining 2% of premium you leave on the table is not meaningful. The capital you free up absolutely is. Weird things happen in the stock market, a headline drops, a sector rotates. A stock that was sitting comfortably above your strike suddenly has a bad two-day stretch. Closing a position when you have captured nearly all of the available premium removes that risk entirely and gives you your capital back to work with.

In this case, I also had a specific reason: I wanted to look for a third put opportunity before the expiration date. I thought a pullback might come that would set up another red-day entry.

It did not.

The Third Put That Never Happened

As of this writing, $NBIS is trading at $145.39.

The pullback I was waiting for never came. The stock just kept going. I did not find another entry I was comfortable with before the expiration date, so no third trade was made.

I probably should have scanned more actively before I closed the second put. Every dollar matters in this game, and having my capital tied up waiting for a setup that never arrived was a small opportunity cost. That is a real lesson. If you are closing a position early to hunt the next play, make sure you have already done the homework on what that play might be.

I am also not going to sell a put on a $145 stock when my TSIM target is $102.50. That would break the actual rule. You do not sell cash-secured puts at strike prices you would not genuinely be comfortable owning the shares at. If $NBIS pulled back hard toward my target and the premium was there, that would be a different conversation. At $145, with a model pointing to $102.50 fair value, I am watching from the sideline.

The Result

Two cash-secured puts on the same stock, both entered on red days, both exited with the premium largely intact. Combined, the two trades generated a premium return well above what most people would expect from a cash position sitting idle over that same period. And at no point did I own a single share.

The key inputs that made both trades work:

Red-day entries: both puts were sold into fear-driven dips, which meant richer premiums and more cushion between the stock price and the strike.

Strike discipline: both strikes sat below my TSIM target price of $102.50, which meant I was only agreeing to buy at prices I considered reasonable given my own analysis.

Knowing when to close: capturing 98% and moving on is almost always the right call. The last 2% is not worth the tail risk.

Staying honest about the model: the TSIM rated this a sell, and I traded it anyway. But the trades were still inside my rules. The model is a tool, not a command. I am building a process, not following one blindly.

The Pick ‘em Paul Bottom Line

Cash-secured puts are not about owning stock. They are about getting paid to be willing to own stock at a price you have already decided is reasonable.

The red-day entry is the edge. The strike discipline is the protection. The early close at 98% captured is the discipline that keeps you from getting complacent.

$NBIS is now at $145 and climbing and my model target price says $102.50. I am not chasing it. The next time I look at this stock as a trade candidate is when the price and my thesis are back in the same zip code.

Until then, the premium is collected, the capital is free, and the process did its job.

Pick ‘em Paul Rule: Red days create premium. Patience creates opportunity. Strike discipline keeps you honest. And knowing when to walk away is a skill, not a failure.

Are you using red-day dips as put entry signals on stocks you already have a thesis on? Hit reply and tell me what you’re watching.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. The Turner Street Investment Model is an educational framework. Scores reflect relative rankings, not guarantees of future prices. Always do your own homework and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

Quick note: Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice. Bet responsibly, keep it fun, and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

I Am Not a Golf Guy. The Odds Are Interesting Anyway.

Let me be upfront about something. I do not follow golf on a weekly basis. I am not going to pretend I have watched every tournament since January or that I have strong opinions about wedge play and course management. I watch golf maybe four days a year, and three of those days are usually in April.

But here is the thing about the Masters. You do not have to be a golf obsessive to recognize that the first major of the year is one of the biggest betting markets in sports. Augusta National is one of the most recognizable venues on earth. Amen Corner is one of the most famous three-hole stretches in any sport. The green jacket is the kind of trophy that non-fans can identify on sight. And the futures market is enormous, wide open, and full of interesting numbers if you are willing to look at it through a probability lens instead of a weekly handicap lens.

That is exactly the lens I use here at JPM Picks. So let’s get into it.

Why Golf Futures Are a Different Animal

Before I break down the players, I want to talk about why golf betting is structurally different from team sports betting, because it matters for how you think about the numbers.

In a football game or a basketball game, you are choosing between two sides. One wins, one loses. Your probability math is relatively simple. In a golf major, you are picking one player out of a field that can exceed 80 competitors. The house keeps its edge by pricing the field collectively, which means favorites are often shorter than they should be and the middle tier of the board is usually where the value hides.

The historical pattern at the Masters backs this up. Most winners since the tournament expanded to its modern format have come from the +1000 to +3000 range, not from the very top of the board. Chalk wins sometimes, but the format rewards course-specific skills, hot streaks coming in, and a certain kind of steady ball-striking that does not always align with who the market has priced as the overall favorite.

Keep that in mind as we work through the board.

Scottie Scheffler +500: Taking the Chalk (And I Mean It This Time)

Last year I picked the Braves instead of the Dodgers because picking the prohibitive favorite felt lazy. I talked myself out of the obvious answer and watched the right answer win at +240 while my 8-1 bet disappeared. I wrote about it in the MLB preview. I am not making the same mistake twice.

Scottie Scheffler won the Masters in 2022 and again in 2024. He finished fourth last year as the defending champion. He has never finished outside the top 20 at Augusta National. He is the number one ranked player in the world and has been for a long time. And yet when I look at the board and see him at +500, my instinct is not to find a reason to fade him. My instinct is to remember what happened the last time I faded the obvious answer because I like to be contrarian.

Sometimes the process leads you straight back to the obvious answer. Scheffler at Augusta is the Dodgers of golf right now. He is better than everyone else at this venue, he has proven it multiple times, and the honest move is to stop fighting it.

+500 is actually a great price on a golfer like Scottie. I know that. But wrong and right are two different things, and the process says Scheffler is the pick.

Bryson DeChambeau +1000: The Hottest Golfer Walking Into Augusta Right Now

If Scheffler is the chalk play, DeChambeau is the momentum play. And the momentum argument here is about as strong as it gets heading into a major.

DeChambeau just won back-to-back LIV Golf events, including a victory over Jon Rahm in a playoff in South Africa just days before the Masters field is set. He is playing some of the best golf of his life right now, coming into Augusta with genuine confidence and recent proof that his game is working under pressure. That kind of form is not something you ignore when you are building a futures ticket.

The knock on DeChambeau at Augusta historically has been that his power-first approach does not always fit a course that rewards placement and course management. Augusta can be conquered by long hitters, but it punishes recklessness. The version of DeChambeau who just went wire-to-wire in South Africa and then beat Rahm in a playoff looked disciplined, not reckless. That is the version that makes +1000 feel interesting.

At +1000, you are getting real return on a player who is genuinely hot walking through the gates at Augusta. That sits right in the historical sweet spot for Masters winners. This is my value play on the board.

Tommy Fleetwood +2200: The Man Who Has Earned Everything Except a Major

Tommy Fleetwood is one of the more fascinating names on this board, and not just because of his hair, which is legitimately iconic.

Here is what makes Fleetwood an interesting play at +2200. He is one of the most consistent ball-strikers on the planet. He has earned millions of dollars over a long professional career. He has multiple top-five finishes in major championships. And he has never won one. Not once. He finally broke through for his first PGA Tour win at the 2025 FedEx Cup, which tells you everything about how long this guy has been knocking on the door without it opening.

The question with Fleetwood is always whether the breakthrough moment is coming. A player with his consistency, his ball-striking, and his major experience does not stay without a major title forever. At +2200, you are betting that Augusta 2026 is the week the door finally opens.

This is the longer shot on my ticket. But it is the kind of longer shot that has a real narrative behind it and a real player capable of delivering it. That is the only kind of long shot worth putting money on.

The Fade: Xander Schauffele +1500

Schauffele is one of the best golfers in the world. He won two majors in 2024. He is dangerous every time he tees it up. Normally he would be exactly the kind of player I look at in this price range.

But Augusta is not every venue, and 2026 Schauffele has a specific problem that matters a lot on this specific course. His putting has been a real issue this season, ranking well down the statistical charts after being a strength in his major-winning 2024 campaign. Augusta National’s greens are among the most treacherous in golf. You can hit every fairway and every green and still walk away with a bad number if the putter is cold.

+1500 is not short enough to justify the current risk profile. There are better spots on this board. Schauffele is a fade for me this week.

A Brief Word on Patrick Reed +3000

Reed won the green jacket in 2018 and finished second to McIlroy last year. He knows this course. He has the game for it. And wherever Patrick Reed goes, storylines follow. At +3000 he is interesting enough to note, even if I am not putting him on my main ticket. If you like chaos and you want a name that could genuinely win while making the broadcast as dramatic as possible, Reed is your guy.

The JPM Picks Masters Ticket

Here is where I am landing, on the record, before the first tee shot Thursday morning.

• Scottie Scheffler +500 — The chalk pick. I learned my lesson with the Dodgers. Sometimes the process leads you right back to the obvious answer.

• Bryson DeChambeau +1000 — The momentum play. Back-to-back wins coming in, sitting right in the historical sweet spot for Masters winners.

• Tommy Fleetwood +2200 — The story play. Consistent. Experienced. Never won a major. Augusta 2026 might be the week the door finally opens.

Three different price points. Three different reasons. All three sitting in or near the historical range where Masters champions tend to come from.

If Scheffler wins, the chalk worked and I stopped fighting the obvious answer. If DeChambeau wins, the momentum play cashed and we get one of the best stories of the golf season. If Fleetwood wins, a guy who has been knocking on the door for his entire career finally gets to put on a green jacket, and I will be very loud about having him on my ticket.

Any of those outcomes works for me. Let’s see what Augusta has to say about it.

JPM Picks is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

Let me start with the scoreboard.

McNeese lost in the first round. My Cinderella pick was home well before midnight.. I called it as my most trusted upset spot in the entire 5/12 slate, and they didn’t make it out of the first weekend. That one stings and I’m not going to dress it up.

But here’s the thing about this tournament, the bracket I submitted before the first games tipped off still has my champion pick alive in the Final Four. And the two teams that actually delivered Cinderella runs this year? One of them was wearing black and gold, and that one is a little personal.

Let’s get into it.

The Miss: McNeese and the Cinderella That Wasn’t

I built the McNeese case out loud and I’m not going to quietly walk it back now. They had tournament experience from last year’s run. They played in a system that knew how to win close games. The Vanderbilt matchup looked complicated enough on paper to create real uncertainty. The Commodores were hot going into the Madness, and I should have road with them.

The 12-seed history is real, and it will be real again next year. The historical rate on 12-seeds beating 5-seeds is not a fluke. This particular matchup just didn’t deliver.

That’s March. You make the case, you own the result, and you move on.

The Two Real Cinderellas: Texas and Iowa

While McNeese was going home early, the bracket was producing two legitimate upset stories. Neither one was on my bracket. Both of them deserved to be.

Texas: From the First Four to the Sweet Sixteen

Texas came into this tournament as an 11-seed that had to win a First Four game just to earn their spot in the bracket. Most teams that start Wednesday night in Dayton are happy to make it to the weekend. Texas made it to the second weekend.

They beat NC State in the First Four, knocked off BYU in the first round, and then took down Gonzaga in the round of 32. That is three wins over three teams with legitimate credentials. The Gonzaga win alone is a result most 3-seeds would be proud of.

They ran out of road against Purdue in the Sweet 16, but a First Four team beating Gonzaga and reaching the Sweet 16 is not a footnote. That is a real run, and the Longhorns earned every bit of it.

Iowa: The One That Got Me

I said in the original preview that I had Iowa losing to Florida in the second round. I said getting to the round of 32 would be a good March outcome and we should call it a win.

Iowa had other ideas.

The Hawkeyes beat Clemson in the first round, which was the pick. Then they beat Florida, the defending national champion, in the second round by one point. One point. A Florida team that was a 1-seed in the South region with a legitimate case to reach the Final Four again. Iowa beat them by one.

The Sweet 16 was against Nebraska, a Big Ten opponent, and Iowa only led that game for a little more than two minutes. Two minutes of a 40-minute basketball game. They found a way.

The Elite 8 was Illinois. Another Big Ten team, another opponent that knew Iowa inside and out. The Hawkeyes lost that one and fell one win short of the Final Four, which would have been their first trip since 1980. Their last Elite 8 appearance before this one was 1987. Thirty-nine years between Elite 8 trips, and they still couldn’t get over the last wall.

I am a lifelong Iowa Hawkeyes fan. I watched every minute of that run while living in Wisconsin and absorbing the full grief of that Illinois loss in a room by myself. It was exactly the kind of March run that reminds you why the tournament is worth watching every single year, and it hurt exactly as much as it should have.

I picked them to lose in the second round. They made the Elite 8. I am not upset about being wrong.

The Big Ten Took Over This Bracket

Michigan is in the Final Four. Illinois is in the Final Four. Iowa made the Elite 8 before losing to one of those Final Four teams. Nebraska was in the Sweet 16.

The Big Ten did not come to play this year. They came to take over. All of the Final Four teams are from power conferences, and the conference that took the most heat all season for being top-heavy is now placing multiple programs in Indianapolis.

For anyone who spent the regular season debating whether the Big Ten was overrated, the bracket has your answer.

The Hits Worth Claiming

St. John’s. I said they were misseeded. I said they and Northern Iowa were two teams that deserved a better stage than the first round. Northern Iowa did not agree, because St. John’s destroyed them by 26 points. Twenty-six. The game that I framed as one of the best first-round matchups in the bracket turned into a statement win by a team I thought was playing better basketball than their seed implied.

They then escaped Kansas by two points in the second round. Which, if you have been following St. John’s basketball this season, is very on-brand for them. Make it dramatic, make it close, find a way.

The misseeding call was right. The outcome was right. I will take it.

Wisconsin, on the other hand, lost in the first round by one point. I called them the most dangerous 5-seed in the bracket. One point. I still think the read was correct. One point is a bounce, a call, or a missed free throw. That result does not change the analysis.

The Misses Worth Owning

Houston was my sleeper pick to push Florida deep in the South region. They lost to Illinois, who has turned out to be the real story of the South bracket. Hard to be too upset about that one since Illinois has beaten some good teams to get to this point.

Michigan State was the other sleeper. Tom Izzo in March is always worth noting and I stand by the logic. They ran into UConn, who turned out to be one of the most dangerous teams in this entire bracket. UConn beat Michigan State, then turned around and knocked out Duke on a buzzer-beater after trailing by 19. That is not a team that accidentally made the Final Four.

McNeese is already in the first section. I’m not revisiting it twice.

The Champion Pick Is Still Alive. The Bracket Pool Is Interesting.

I picked Michigan to win the national championship. Michigan is in the Final Four. I am going to let that sentence sit for a moment before I say anything else.

The argument I made in the original preview was simple: Michigan had the best collective starting five in the country. Not the most individual lottery picks. The best unit. The best team. That read has held up through the first four rounds.

The argument against Duke was also simple. NBA talent does not guarantee March outcomes. Zion’s Duke team lost in the second weekend. Nine future NBA players did not get Kentucky past the Final Four in 2015. I cited the history and I meant it.

Duke is not in the Final Four. UConn beat them 73-72 on a last-second three-pointer. Duke was up 19 points at one point in that game. They lost by one. On a buzzer-beater. I do not know how to write that sentence without laughing and shaking my head at the same time.

The argument against Duke just got proven right in real time, in the most March way possible. Zion’s team lost in the second weekend. Nine future NBA players couldn’t get Kentucky out of the Final Four in 2015. And now a Duke team loaded with lottery picks blew a 19-point lead and lost on a buzzer-beater to UConn. The history I cited was not an accident. It was a pattern. March just ran the pattern again. Michigan plays UConn now. The best collective unit against a team that just proved it has no quit in it whatsoever. I made my call before any of this started and I am not changing it now.

One more thing worth mentioning, since transparency is the whole deal at JPM Picks. I was sitting in fourth place out of 16 in the JPM Picks bracket pool going into tonight. The three people ahead of me all had Duke winning the national championship. Duke just lost. I am not going to make any promises about where the leaderboard lands because I genuinely do not know the exact math, but the three people I needed to pass were all riding a horse that just got knocked out on a buzzer-beater. Michigan winning the title gives me the best possible outcome in this pool. We are going to find out.

We’ll know how this ends in a few days.

The JPM Take

McNeese busted early. Texas went from the First Four to the Sweet 16 and nobody is going to forget that run. Iowa made the Elite 8 for the first time since 1987, lost to Illinois by 12, and still made this the most memorable Hawkeyes March in nearly four decades. The Big Ten delivered. St. John’s was exactly as dangerous as I thought they were.

Michigan is still standing. Duke is not. The Final Four is Michigan, Illinois, Arizona, and UConn.

That is about as good as a bracket preview can age in this format.

The process was right more than it was wrong. The Cinderella pick missed. The champion pick is alive. The case I made against Duke just got validated by a UConn team that erased a 19-point deficit and won on a buzzer-beater. And somewhere in Indianapolis in a few days, we are going to find out if Michigan can do what I said they would do back when this whole thing started.

I have Michigan. That has not changed.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

The Options 101 post explains the theory of the Wheel Strategy. But at some point, the best way to learn this stuff is to just watch a real trade happen in real time.

So here it is.

This is my most recent wheel trade on $NFLX, start to finish. The entry. The assignment. The covered call. The twist nobody saw coming. The real-time gut punch. And the roll I agonized over before finally making.

No part of this is theoretical. Every number is real. Including the uncomfortable ones.

How Netflix Got on My Radar

For most of my options life, Netflix was not a stock I could realistically trade. At over $1,100 per share before the split, selling a single cash-secured put meant having more than $110,000 sitting in your account ready to cover assignment. That is not a Pick ‘em Paul position size. That is someone else’s problem.

Then on November 17th, 2025, Netflix did a 10-for-1 stock split, bringing the share price from north of $1,100 down to around $110. One of the best businesses in media suddenly became a stock I could realistically work with.

I watched it closely after the split and the stock started drifting lower. That caught my attention. Not because something was wrong with Netflix, but because I believe Netflix is a long-term winner in the media space. Streaming is the ballgame. Netflix is still leading it. A pullback in a name I believe in is exactly the kind of setup I look for when selling puts.

So I started watching the options chain.

The Cash-Secured Put: Getting Paid to Wait

My process for selling cash-secured puts has one core rule before anything else: I only sell puts on stocks I would genuinely be okay owning. Not stocks I think might go up. Stocks I would be comfortable holding for six to twelve months if the trade went against me.

Netflix cleared that bar easily.

I sold the $80 cash-secured put for $1.76 in premium, expiring on February 20th, 2026.

Here is why that specific strike made sense.

My target when selling a 30-day put is to collect somewhere between 1.5% and 2% of the strike price in premium. That is the range I have landed on as my comfort zone. Enough to make the trade worth doing. Not so much that I am reaching for premium and taking on more risk than I realize.

$1.76 divided by an $80 strike price comes out to 2.2%. That clears my target. The trade made sense on paper, so I placed it.

With that put sold, I had $8,000 set aside to cover assignment. That cash sits there and does nothing exciting while you wait. But collecting $176 to be patient on a stock you already believe in is not a bad way to spend a month.

Pick ‘em Paul Rule: If you are selling a cash-secured put after a big green run, you are probably late. I look to sell puts after red days or during small pullbacks, when fear picks up and premiums are a little richer.

February 20th: Assignment

Netflix closed at $78.67 on February 20th.

That put me below my $80 strike, which meant I was assigned. I now owned 100 shares of Netflix at $80 per share, even though the market said they were worth $78.67.

Here is the thing about assignment: it is not a disaster. Assignment is the plan. When I sold that $80 put, I was saying out loud that I was willing to buy Netflix at $80. The stock went below $80. I bought at $80. That is exactly what I signed up for.

My effective buy price after accounting for the premium I collected? $78.24 per share. Not $80. The $1.76 I collected when I sold the put chips away at the cost basis from day one.

Now I owned 100 shares and it was time to move to the second half of the wheel.

The Covered Call: Getting Paid to Wait Again

That following Wednesday, February 25th, Netflix had a solid green day. So I sold the $85 covered call for $2.16 in premium, expiring on March 20th, 2026.

Green days are when I prefer to sell covered calls. When the stock is up, premiums are often a little richer and you are selling at a better price than you would be on a flat or down day. It is the mirror image of selling puts on red days.

The math on this trade looked clean:

• $2.16 divided by my $80 cost basis comes out to 2.7% premium in less than 30 days. Above my target.

• If the stock stayed below $85 by March 20th, I would keep the premium and keep my shares.

• If the stock climbed above $85 and got called away, I would sell at $85, keep the $2.16 premium, and also pocket $500 in stock appreciation from my $80 purchase price.

Over $200 in premium in under 30 days, plus $500 in built-in gains if the stock cooperated. Both outcomes were outcomes I was okay with. That is the whole point of the checklist.

I felt good about this trade. That feeling did not last long.

Pick ‘em Paul Rule: If you are not okay with either outcome of a covered call, the strike is wrong. The trade should feel like a choice you made, not a gamble you are hoping works out.

February 26th: The Twist

I did not see the news first.

I was going about my day when I noticed Netflix had popped. Not a little pop. A real one. I pulled up the chart and the stock was moving hard and I had no idea why. So I did what anyone does: I looked it up.

Netflix had withdrawn its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. The market loved it. The stock ran, closing as high as $99.17 on March 5th.

And I was sitting there with a $85 covered call I had sold the day before.

My first thought, and I am going to quote myself accurately here: “I can’t believe I sold a call at the exact worst time one could sell a call on $NFLX.”

That is the kind of sentence you say to yourself when you watch a stock you own run from the mid-80s to nearly $100 and your upside is capped at $85. The premium that felt great 24 hours earlier suddenly felt like a consolation prize.

The rough math on what I missed: approximately $1,000 in additional upside above my strike. That is the cost of selling a covered call on a name that suddenly has a major catalyst nobody saw coming.

Here is the thing I had to remind myself: I did not do anything wrong. I ran my checklist. I checked for known upcoming events. The WBD situation was out there as background noise but nobody had the withdrawal date circled on a calendar. This was not a case of ignoring a red flag. This was a news event that happened the day after I placed a trade.

That does not make it sting less. But it matters for how you process it and what you do next.

Pick ‘em Paul Rule: Always check for earnings dates and known catalysts before selling a covered call. I did that here and still got caught by surprise. Sometimes the market just does that. What you cannot do is let one bad surprise talk you into abandoning a process that was sound.

The Roll: My Most Agonized Decision of This Trade

With 15 days still left before my March 20th expiration, I watched the stock cool off from its peak. By the time March 20th arrived, Netflix had pulled back to around $91. The market was having a rough day overall.

I had a decision to make. I could let my shares get called away at $85, collect the premium, and move on. Or I could roll the position and stay in the trade.

I want to be honest about this part: I went back and forth. This was not an obvious call.

The case for letting the shares go was real. I had already made money on this trade. The premium from the put, the premium from the call, and $500 in stock appreciation added up to a clean profitable outcome. Walking away at $85 on stock I bought for $80 is not a bad result. There is nothing embarrassing about that exit.

The case for rolling was also real. I still believe in Netflix long term. My TSIM model, the multi-factor evaluation framework I use to score stocks, puts a 12-month target price of $98.13 on the stock. With the shares currently trading around $92.42 as I write this, that still implies meaningful upside. Selling at $85 and walking away from a stock my model says is worth nearly $100 just did not sit right.

So I rolled. And yes, I am aware of the irony that the guy in the wheelchair is out here talking about rolling. Nobody calls me the rolling quad yet, but I am working on it.

I bought back my $85 covered call for $6.25 and sold the $95 covered call expiring July 17th, 2026 for $6.89. That is a net credit of $0.64 to extend the trade.

When I roll, I want to receive a credit whenever possible. Taking in money to extend the trade beats paying out of pocket to buy yourself more time. $0.64 is not exciting. But it is not nothing either, and it keeps the premium income flowing in the right direction.

The Full Premium Math

Here is everything this wheel has generated so far on this one position:

• $1.76 from the original cash-secured put

• $2.16 from the first covered call

• $0.64 net credit from the roll

Total premium collected: $4.56 per share, or $456 on 100 shares.

My effective cost basis on Netflix is now less than $75.50 per share instead of the $80 I paid at assignment. That is a meaningful reduction, and it gives me more cushion if the stock keeps sliding before July.

The Honest Drawbacks of Rolling

Rolling is not a magic fix. It comes with real tradeoffs and I knew all of them when I made the decision.

• The July 17th expiration goes through the next earnings cycle. Earnings can gap a stock hard in either direction and I am now exposed to that.

• I cannot sell additional covered calls on Netflix for the next four months. That is four months of potential premium sitting untouched.

• I extended a trade I was hoping to close. Every week this stays open is a week my capital is committed here instead of somewhere else.

I am eyes open on all of that. The roll was the right call for my situation and my thesis on the stock. But I am not going to dress it up as a clean win. It is a decision made under uncertainty, like every decision in this game.

Where Things Stand and What Happens Next

As of right now, Netflix is trading at $92.42. I own 100 shares with a cost basis under $75.50, a $95 covered call outstanding through July 17th, and a TSIM target price of $98.13.

Here is how I am thinking about the three main paths from here.

Path 1: Netflix Hovers Around $95 on July 17th

This is the ideal scenario. The stock trades near my strike, the call expires or my shares get called away right around $95, and I walk away with the premium and the appreciation. Clean exit. Start the wheel over somewhere else.

Path 2: Netflix Runs Well Above $95 Again

Same situation as the WBD news, but I have more room this time. If the stock is well above $95 heading into July and I can roll for a credit to a higher strike or a later date, I will look at it seriously. If I cannot get a credit and the stock has genuinely broken out, it might be time to let the shares go, book the gains, and move on. Getting called away at $95 on stock I bought for $80 with $4.56 in premium on top is still a very good trade.

Path 3: Netflix Falls Back Below $95

If the stock is below $95 by July 17th, my call expires worthless and I keep the premium. My job then is to sell a new covered call at a strike above my cost basis whenever a reasonable setup shows up. Anything above $80 with acceptable premium works.

If Netflix fundamentally broke and I needed to exit the position entirely, I could sell a covered call at the $75 strike and get out at approximately breakeven. I think that is the least likely of the three scenarios. But it is the scenario you always plan for before you need it.

The Pick ‘em Paul Bottom Line

The wheel is not a guarantee. It is a process.

I entered Netflix because I believed in it. I collected premium while waiting to buy. I got assigned and started collecting premium while holding. I got surprised by a news event and watched the stock run past my strike. I sat with a decision for a while, genuinely went back and forth, and then rolled instead of letting go because I still believe in the stock.

None of that is a mistake. Every part of it was a decision made with a reason attached to it. Including the parts that stung.

The premium I have collected has already lowered my effective cost basis by more than four dollars per share. The model gives me a target that still implies real upside from where we sit today. And I have a clear plan for each of the three directions this trade can go from here.

That is what the wheel actually looks like in practice. Not a clean chart where everything goes right. A real trade with a real gut punch in the middle and a real decision to agonize over when things got complicated.

This is JPM Picks. We show the work, including the parts that make you say things to yourself you would not repeat in polite company.

Pick ‘em Paul Rule: The wheel works best when assignment feels like the plan and rolling feels like a choice. If either one of those feels like a disaster, check your strike discipline before you check anything else.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. The Turner Street Investment Model is an educational framework. Scores reflect relative rankings, not guarantees of future prices. Always do your own homework and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

Let me open with a confession.

I have been filling out brackets for thirty years. I have won maybe three pools in all that time. And before you close this tab, let me tell you what that number actually means.

It does not mean my process is broken. It means bracket pools are a chaos contest, not a process contest. The format rewards whoever nails the most upsets, which means the person who throws darts at a wall and gets lucky on a 10-seed Final Four run scores more points than the person who makes twenty well-reasoned, defensible picks that all go chalk. Winning a bracket pool and having a good process are almost completely unrelated skills.

Three pools in thirty years tells you more about how this format works than it tells you about the quality of the thinking behind the picks.

So, here is what I am actually trying to do. I am not trying to win your office pool by going chalk. I am trying to build a real argument for every pick, own it before the first game tips, and learn something either way. That is the whole deal with JPM Picks.

This year I actually like where my bracket lands. Let me show you why.

Quick note: Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice. Bet responsibly, keep it fun, and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

The Field: Four Real 1-Seeds and an Open Bracket

The four 1-seeds are Duke in the East, Arizona in the West, Michigan in the Midwest, and Florida in the South. In that order, which matters for how the committee feels about each team.

Here is a number worth knowing before you fill out a single line: in the entire history of the modern tournament, all four 1-seeds have reached the Final Four exactly twice. Once in 2008, when Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina and UCLA all advanced together. And once last year, when Auburn, Duke, Florida and Houston all made it to San Antonio. Twice in forty years. The odds of it happening again in 2026 are long, which means at least one of these four programs is going to lose before the second weekend ends.

That is not a reason to avoid picking 1-seeds deep. Quite the opposite. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, 26 of 40 national champions have been a 1-seed. Fourteen of the last eighteen title winners came off the top line. The math still points upward. But somewhere in this bracket, one of these four programs is going to stumble, and figuring out which one is worth your attention before tip-off Thursday.

The Champion Pick: Michigan Over Duke

I am picking Michigan to win the national championship. They are the 1-seed in the Midwest region. The betting market has them right behind Duke at the top of the board. And yes, they just lost to Purdue in the Big Ten tournament final today.

I am still picking Michigan.

But before I explain why, I want to make the case against the team everyone else is going to pick first.

Why NBA Talent Doesn’t Always Win in March

Duke is the consensus favorite. They have the most NBA-ready players in the country, and the market loves them for it. I understand the logic. I just do not agree with the conclusion, and history has something to say about this.

The 2018-19 Duke team had Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett, Cam Reddish and Tre Jones, all freshmen, all future NBA players. They swept the eventual national champion Virginia during the regular season. They were the most talented roster in the country by almost any measure. They lost to Michigan State in the Elite Eight. An NBA G-League squad could not get out of the second weekend.

The 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats went 38-0 heading into the Final Four. Nine players from that roster eventually played in the NBA. Karl-Anthony Towns and Devin Booker were on that team. Nine future NBA players. They lost to Wisconsin 71-64 in the Final Four and never got their title.

The 2001-02 Duke team had Jay Williams and Mike Dunleavy, who went second and third overall in the NBA Draft that summer. Duke was ranked number one. They lost to Indiana in the Sweet 16.

And since I am picking Michigan, it is only right to include this one. In 1992-93, Michigan’s own Fab Five were the most talented team in the country and the favorites to win it all, right up until Chris Webber called a timeout Michigan did not have and they lost to North Carolina 77-71. Talent, meet March.

The throughline here is not complicated. NBA talent wins NBA games. March Madness is a different animal, and it has been proving that for forty years. Duke being loaded with lottery picks does not make them a lock. It makes them a favorite. Those are two very different things.

Why Michigan

Michigan is the 1-seed in the Midwest for a reason. The argument I keep coming back to is this: they have the best starting five in the country as a unit. Not the most individual lottery picks. The best five players who play together, trust each other, and execute on both ends.

They also do not see Duke until Indianapolis. That is six wins away. A lot happens between Selection Sunday and the national championship game, and a team built the way Michigan is built does not fall apart because of one conference tournament loss on a Saturday afternoon.

The market has them at +350 to win it all, almost identical to Duke at +330. The committee made Duke the overall 1-seed. The market is essentially calling it even. I am taking the side that has the better collective unit over the side that has the better individual talent, and I have forty years of March history backing me up.

Michigan over Duke in the national championship. It is on the record.

The 5/12 Matchups: The Four Games Everyone Is Watching

Every March, the 5 vs. 12 conversation is unavoidable. The history earns it. In 34 of the last 40 tournaments, at least one 12-seed has beaten a 5-seed. The clip since 1985 sits around 35 percent. You are not picking a longshot when you take a 12-seed. You are picking a coin that comes up heads more than a third of the time.

There is also this, which I cannot stop thinking about: no 5-seed has ever won a national championship. Not once in the history of the modern tournament. The 5-seed is somehow the most overvalued spot in the bracket. High enough to get respect, not built to go the distance.

This year’s four 5/12 matchups are not created equal. Each one has its own story.

St. John’s vs. Northern Iowa (East Region)

This is the matchup that does not deserve to happen in the first round.

St. John’s is a 5-seed that just won back-to-back Big East Tournament titles, beating UConn in the final on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. They walked into Selection Sunday as the hottest team in the Big East. There is a legitimate argument they are playing better basketball right now than any team seeded above them in this region.

Northern Iowa is a 12-seed that plays at one of the slowest tempos in the country, won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, takes care of the basketball, and has a head coach with a track record of winning when it matters. They are not a typical 12-seed sneaking through a soft conference. They are a disciplined team that makes you work for everything.

The honest version is that both of these teams are mis-seeded. St. John’s probably belongs somewhere between a 2 and a 4 based on how they are playing right now. Northern Iowa is better than a 12. The committee put them across from each other anyway, and we get this matchup in the first round instead of the Sweet 16 where it belongs.

I have St. John’s advancing, but this is not a comfortable pick. Circle this game. It is one of the best first-round matchups in the entire bracket, and it is being buried under the Cinderella narrative when it deserves its own feature.

Wisconsin vs. High Point (West Region)

Wisconsin scares me as a 5-seed. Not in a bad way. In the the-rest-of-this-region-should-be-paying-attention way.

The Badgers beat Michigan, Michigan State, Illinois, and Purdue this season. That is four tournament teams from a conference that does not give anything away. They shoot threes at high volume, they keep turnover rates near the bottom of the country, and on a good shooting night they can beat almost anyone in this field.

High Point is the 12-seed on the other side. They are a fine mid-major program. They have not seen anything this tournament that remotely resembles what Wisconsin can do when they are locked in. This is the 5/12 matchup where I am least tempted by the upset. Wisconsin is a legitimate Sweet 16 threat, and if they get rolling in the first weekend, the West region conversation gets interesting fast.

Vanderbilt vs. McNeese (South Region): The Cinderella Pick

This is my Cinderella pick and I am not moving off it.

McNeese is not walking into March Madness without experience. They took down Clemson in last year’s tournament as a 12-seed. They have been in this building before, and that matters more than most people give it credit for in a one-and-done format.

The Vanderbilt side of this matchup is genuinely complicated. The Commodores just upset Florida in the SEC tournament, so they are carrying real momentum into Thursday. They are not a hollow 5-seed. This is a tougher matchup on paper than the seeding implies.

I still like McNeese. The historical edge is real, the experience is there, and a run into the second weekend from a team nobody outside their own fanbase is picking is exactly what makes this tournament worth watching every March.

And here is the one thing I keep coming back to: no 5-seed has ever won this tournament. The upside ceiling on a 5-seed, historically speaking, is not worth the risk of sleeping on a 12-seed with tournament experience and a system that knows how to win. McNeese is the pick.

Texas Tech vs. Akron (Midwest Region): The Most Storylines Per Minute

Save this one.

Akron just became the first program in MAC history to win three consecutive conference tournament titles. They did it by rallying from a double-digit deficit and winning on a last-second three against Toledo in the final. That is not a team stumbling into the tournament. That is a program that knows how to finish when the moment is biggest.

The Texas Tech side of this matchup is where it gets uncomfortable for the higher seed. All-American forward JT Toppin tore his ACL in February and is done for the season. Star guard Christian Anderson, who averages nearly 19 points and leads the Big 12 with over seven assists per game, dealt with a groin injury after slipping on the Big 12’s LED glass court and was cleared just today.

A banged-up Texas Tech team walking into a first-round game against a hot, experienced Akron squad with three straight MAC titles is not as safe as that 5-seed implies.

Watch the Anderson injury reports right up until tip-off. This is the upset spot I trust most in the entire 5/12 slate.

The Iowa Hawkeyes: Welcome Back to March

I am the biggest Iowa Hawkeye fan living in the state of Wisconsin. That is a specific kind of suffering that only people who have done it understand, and I am embracing it fully this week.

Iowa is a 9-seed, which is disappointing for a program with their history, but they are back in the tournament and that is worth something. They drew Clemson in the first round, and I think they get through that game. The Hawkeyes have enough to handle an 8-seed in a relatively even first-round matchup.

Florida is the wall. They are a 1-seed in the South for a reason, and even with the early SEC tournament exit, they are a different level than anything Iowa will see on the way there. I have Iowa losing to Florida in the second round. I am not upset about that prediction. Getting Iowa to the round of 32 is a good March outcome, and I am taking it.

Welcome back to the tournament, Hawkeyes. Let’s make the second round and call it a win.

Two Sleepers Worth Your Attention

Houston (South Region)

Houston is a 2-seed in the South and the team I trust most to give Florida a real fight in the Elite 8. They are well-coached, deep, and they play defense that travels to neutral sites. Florida had an early SEC tournament exit. Houston getting hot in the South region is not a stretch. I have them in the Elite 8 in my bracket, and I feel good about that path.

Michigan State (East Region)

Tom Izzo in March is a different variable than any seed number suggests. Michigan State has won more Quad 1 games than almost anyone outside the top four favorites this season. They are a 3-seed in the East, which means a gauntlet to reach the Final Four. But Izzo has done more with less, more than once, and a team that has beaten the competition Michigan State has beaten this year does not go quietly in the first weekend.

The Fade: Duke

I said it in the champion pick section, so I might as well make it official here.

Duke is the overall 1-seed. They are the betting favorite. The public is loading up on them everywhere you look, and the market has already adjusted to reflect it.

I respect Duke. I am not picking Duke.

The NBA talent argument is real and so is the history that argues against it. Zion’s team could not get out of the second weekend. Nine future NBA players could not get Kentucky past the Final Four. This is not a knock on Duke’s roster. It is a reminder that March has been punishing the most talented team in the field for forty years, and there is no reason to assume 2026 is the year that changes.

Duke futures are the price the public pays for the brand. The brand is real. The guarantee is not.

A Few Numbers Worth Knowing

Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, 26 of 40 national champions have been a 1-seed. Fourteen of the last 18 title winners came off the top line. Picking a 1-seed to win is not boring. It is historically correct.

The highest seed to ever win the national championship is the 1985 Villanova Wildcats, who came in as an 8-seed and beat Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown 66-64. That record has stood for forty years.

No 5-seed has ever won the national championship. Not once.

All four 1-seeds have reached the Final Four exactly twice in tournament history, 2008 and 2025. The odds of a repeat in 2026 are long.

Since 1985, 12-seeds are 61-48-2 against the spread in first-round matchups. The public bets the 5-seed, the line adjusts, and the 12 becomes legitimate value even when they lose outright. That is the JPM Picks hook on every 5/12 game in this bracket.

The JPM Take

Michigan over Duke in Indianapolis. That is the pick, it is on the record, and I am owning it.

McNeese is the Cinderella. The Texas Tech vs. Akron game is the most interesting first-round matchup in the field. St. John’s and Northern Iowa are two misseeded teams that deserve a better stage than the first round. Wisconsin is the most dangerous 5-seed in the bracket. Iowa makes the second round and loses to Florida.

The bracket is more open than the market implies at the top. Duke and Michigan are the class of the field, but four legitimate 1-seeds means four paths where a hot team from the 2-4 line can change everything in one weekend. That unpredictability is not a flaw in March Madness. It is the entire point.

I have been doing this for thirty years and won two or three pools. The process is still worth running. The picks are still worth making. And if Michigan wins it all in Indianapolis in a few weeks, I will have something to say about that too.

Good luck with your brackets and try not to chase the losses.

One More Thing: Come Play With Us

I have set up a JPM Picks bracket pool on CBS Sports and I want you in it.

Entry is $10. Send payment via Venmo to Joshua-Myers-104 before you submit your bracket. Once you are paid up, head to CBS Sports, find the pool, and use the password JPMPicks26 to get in.

JPM Picks Bracket Challenge

Bragging rights are included at no additional charge.

If you beat me, I will write about it. That is a promise.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.

--- Pick ‘em Paul

Editor’s note: Malik Willis signed with the Dolphins hours after this was written. The plan stands as originally built. I planned to release this on 3/10, the night before the league year truly begins. Leave it to a rookie journalist to forget about the ‘legal tampering’ period. What the heck is legal tampering? I hope you still enjoy this read as it was one of my more fun pieces to write. - Pick ‘Em Paul.

I am a Packers fan. Born and raised in Green Bay, I bleed green and gold, and I make absolutely no apologies for it.

I also love Las Vegas more than almost any city on earth.

So, when I sat down to think about which NFL franchise has the most interesting offseason setup right now, the answer hit me fast. It wasn’t the Cowboys. It wasn’t the Jets. It was the Las Vegas Raiders, a team that just finished 3-14, holds the most cap space in the NFL, and is sitting on a pile of draft picks that would make most GMs dizzy.

The question that kept pulling at me wasn’t ‘can the Raiders get better?’ It was this: what if someone actually thought big enough to use all of it the right way?

So, I’m going to play GM for an offseason. This is the part most sports fans daydream about on a Wednesday afternoon. I’m just doing it out loud.

Here’s my warning upfront: the plan I’m going to walk you through goes directly against the conventional wisdom. Every major outlet right now is writing pieces about how the Raiders should use the number one pick to draft Fernando Mendoza and build around him. I’m going to argue they shouldn’t. Not because Mendoza isn’t good, but because the math of this offseason points somewhere else entirely.

Let’s start with the odds, because this is JPM Picks and the odds are always where we start.

The Number That Got My Attention

The 1999 St. Louis Rams entered that season at 150-1 to win the Super Bowl. Kurt Warner came off the practice squad. They won it all. It’s the longest preseason Super Bowl odds in NFL history by a wide margin.

The 2001 New England Patriots? 60-1. You know how that one ended.

As of this writing, my local sportsbook has the Las Vegas Raiders at 125-1 to win Super Bowl LXI.

That’s not 60-1. That’s not even close to that. But it would slide right into second place all-time if this team somehow figured it out, which is either the most absurd sentence I’ve typed this week or the most interesting one.

I’m not telling you to bet the Raiders at 125-1. I’m telling you that number is the reason I started thinking through this scenario in the first place. The upside of being wildly wrong about a 125-1 shot is that you’re wrong about a 125-1 shot. The upside of being right, even partially right, is a story nobody forgets.

Now let’s talk about what they actually have to work with.

What Already Happened (And It’s a Lot)

The Raiders went 3-14 last season. Gardner Minshew and then Geno Smith ran the offense behind what became a league-high 64 sacks allowed. It was rough. The kind of rough that earns you the number one pick in the draft.

Then this past Friday, something interesting happened. The Raiders traded Maxx Crosby, their best defensive player, to the Baltimore Ravens. In return, they received Baltimore’s first-round picks in both 2026 and 2027.

So now, before free agency even opens, the Raiders hold: the first overall pick, the fourteenth pick (Baltimore’s 2026 first, which turned out to be a top-15 pick, meaning the Ravens paid a steep price to land Crosby), and a Ravens first-rounder in 2027.

On top of that, they are sitting on the most cap space in the NFL. Estimates before the Crosby trade had them around $87 to $88 million. After clearing his contract, that number climbed past $119 million depending on which source you’re reading.

This is not a rebuilding team anymore. This is a team with the resources to do something real, if they decide to actually do it.

The Move Nobody Is Talking About: Trading the First Pick

Here’s where I’m going to lose some people, and that’s fine.

The entire football world right now has penciled in Fernando Mendoza to the Raiders at number one. Mendoza won the Heisman, led Indiana to a national title, and is the consensus top quarterback in this class. He is a legitimate franchise quarterback prospect. Nobody serious is disputing that.

But here’s the thing: the 2027 quarterback class might be one of the greatest in NFL draft history. Todd McShay called it potentially one of the greatest quarterback classes ever. Arch Manning is coming back for another year at Texas. Dante Moore returned to Oregon. Julian Sayin is at Ohio State. DJ Lagway is at Baylor. You’re looking at a group that, if even two or three of those names deliver, makes the 2026 class look thin in comparison.

The Raiders have the Ravens’ 2027 first-round pick already. If they play this right, they could add another one. And if they’re the worst team in the league again in 2026, they’re looking at their own number one in 2027 as well.

That’s potentially three first-round picks going into one of the best quarterback drafts in recent memory. Why blow that by reaching for the right answer now when the better answer might be twelve months away?

So, my first call as GM is to Miami.

The Mock Trade: Raiders Trade #1 to the Dolphins

The Miami Dolphins hold the eleventh pick. Their new GM Jon-Eric Sullivan has already signaled he wants to build through the draft, and their new head coach Jeff Hafley (the former Defensive Coordinator with my Green Bay Packers) is trying to establish something from the ground up. Moving on from Tua Tagovailoa and landing a genuine franchise quarterback in Fernando Mendoza would be exactly the kind of statement a new regime makes to announce itself.

And here’s the storyline that writes itself: Mendoza played high school football in Miami. He is, in a very real sense, coming home. The local angle practically sells itself.

This is not a far-fetched trade. Teams have given up enormous packages to move into the top spot for a franchise quarterback. I think a fair ask for flipping the first pick to Miami looks something like this:

Raiders receive: #11 overall + Miami’s 2027 first-round pick + Miami’s 2026 second-round pick

For context, the 49ers gave up three first-round picks spread over multiple years to move from twelfth to third in 2021. Miami would be moving all the way from eleventh to first for a quarterback their fanbase is already excited about. Asking for two firsts (one of which is next year) and a second feels like a real negotiation, not a fantasy.

What the Raiders are left with after this trade:

• #11 pick (from Miami)

• Ravens 2026 first (#14 overall – Maxx Crosby Trade)

• Miami 2026 second

• Ravens 2027 first

• Miami 2027 first

• $119 million in cap space and counting

That is not a rebuilding situation. That is a team that could be genuinely competitive inside two years, with a real quarterback at the center of it, if they spend this offseason correctly.

The Bridge: Malik Willis

Now you need a quarterback for 2026, because you can’t run out there with nobody under center.

Here’s where being a Packer fan gives me a little inside perspective I’m happy to use.

Malik Willis spent two seasons in Green Bay being coached by Matt LaFleur and the Packers’ offensive staff. He went from a 53 percent completion rate and a 49.4 passer rating with the Titans to a 78.7 percent completion rate and a 134.6 passer rating in Green Bay. He completed 70 of 89 passes for 972 yards, six touchdowns, and zero interceptions in limited appearances. He also ran for 261 yards and three scores.

Willis is 26 years old. He is the top free agent on NFL.com’s list of the 101 best available players this offseason. And his agent is David Mulugheta, who negotiated Deshaun Watson’s fully guaranteed contract, which means Willis is going to get paid. Reports have his number somewhere between $25 and $35 million per year.

For the Raiders, with $119 million to work with, that number is manageable. And the fit makes sense: new Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak runs a zone-blocking, play-action system that is custom-built for a mobile quarterback who can extend plays. Willis thrives in exactly that kind of structure.

The expectation here is not that Willis becomes the long-term answer. The expectation is that he is functional enough in 2026 to keep the team competitive while you build around him, and that you go find the real answer in 2027 with the picks you’ve accumulated.

If Willis surprises everyone and plays like he did in Green Bay for a full season? Great. You deal with that problem when you have it.

The Trenches: Where the Real Money Goes

The Raiders were sacked 64 times last season. That led the NFL. Their quarterback pressure percentage on defense ranked 27th in the league, which became a lot more relevant the moment Maxx Crosby got on a plane to Baltimore.

This is where the cap space has to do its heaviest lifting.

Offensive Line: Tyler Linderbaum

If I’m the Raiders and I can sign one free agent this offseason, it’s Tyler Linderbaum, and it’s not close.

Linderbaum just turned 26. He has been to three consecutive Pro Bowls. He missed two games total in four NFL seasons. His pass block win rate in 2025 was 0.9 percent, which means he almost never gave up a pressure, and he did it protecting a two-time MVP in Lamar Jackson. He also plays in a zone-blocking scheme for Baltimore, which is the exact same scheme Klint Kubiak runs in Las Vegas.

The Raiders’ center situation was, to be charitable, one of the worst in the league last year. Signing Linderbaum doesn’t just upgrade a position. It transforms the foundation of the offense.

Pass Rush: Replacing Crosby

The Raiders ranked 27th in quarterback pressure percentage last season. That was with Crosby. Without him, this needs to be an aggressive area in both free agency and the draft.

Odafe Oweh had a strong finish to the 2025 season for the Chargers and figures to command real interest at 27 years old with positional versatility. He’s the kind of player you build a rebuilt defensive line around. With the Crosby trade money now off the books, Las Vegas has the room to be aggressive here.

The Draft Picks at 11 and 14

With the quarterback question deferred to 2027, picks eleven and fourteen become entirely about building the roster around Malik Willis in 2026 and whoever the franchise quarterback is after that.

At eleven, the Raiders should take the best offensive tackle available. Not a reach. Not a positional need pick at a stretch. The best tackle on the board. The offensive line was the single biggest structural problem on this team last year, and you fix structural problems at the top of the draft.

At fourteen, the conversation turns to the defensive front. After trading Crosby, the Raiders need multiple contributors along that line, not just one. A versatile defensive lineman or interior rusher who fits the new 3-4 base scheme gives the defense a piece to build around at a position that now has a real hole in it.

The Asset Map After All of This

Let me put the full picture in one place, because it is genuinely striking when you see it together.

• Malik Willis running the offense on a 2-year bridge deal

• Tyler Linderbaum anchoring the center of the offensive line

• Odafe Oweh or a comparable pass rusher replacing Crosby’s production

• Two premium picks in 2026 (11 and 14) targeting OT and defensive line

• Ravens 2027 first, Miami 2027 first, and the Raiders’ own first in 2027

• A $119 million cap space cushion to fill the rest of the roster

And then you walk into the 2027 draft with potentially three first-round picks in what Todd McShay is already calling one of the best quarterback classes in NFL draft history. Arch Manning. Dante Moore. Julian Sayin. You get to shop.

The Honest Risk Assessment

I am not pretending this plan is without risk. That would be sloppy and this is JPM Picks, where we acknowledge the other side of the trade.

Willis might not be good enough to keep games competitive in 2026, which could mean another 3-14 season and a high pick that you can use on a quarterback a year earlier than planned. That’s actually not the worst outcome in this scenario, since you’d be adding yet another first-round pick to a pile that already includes two future firsts.

The 2027 quarterback class is loaded on paper right now. Paper is not a football field. Any of those names could have a bad year, stay another year, or simply not translate to the NFL the way scouts expect. This is always the risk with any draft-based plan.

And there’s the Crosby piece. Trading your best defensive player and then losing in free agency on the edge rusher side would leave this defense without an identity. That’s the version of this that falls apart fastest.

But here’s the counter: a plan with real risk is still better than no plan at all, and ‘take Mendoza at one and hope for the best’ is not a plan. It’s an outcome. The difference between a good GM and a great one is whether you’re building toward something or just reacting to what’s in front of you.

The JPM Take

The Raiders are 125-1 to win the Super Bowl right now. That beats the 2001 Patriots at 60-1 as an historical comparison and sits second only to the 1999 Rams at 150-1, the longest preseason odds in NFL history.

I’m not telling you this team goes from 3-14 to Super Bowl champion in one year. That would be a wild take even for someone who writes a newsletter called Just Paper Money.

What I’m telling you is that this franchise has a genuine shot to compress what normally takes four or five years into two, if and only if they resist the pressure to take the obvious answer right now and instead use this unusual pile of resources to build something that lasts.

The obvious answer is drafting Mendoza at number one.

The interesting answer is trading that pick to Miami, letting a hometown hero come home, collecting more ammunition than you can count, signing a bridge quarterback with something to prove, and walking into 2027 with the freedom to draft whoever you want.

Both answers have merit. One of them has better odds.

I’ll take the one with better odds.

Quick note: I’m a Packers fan writing about the Raiders while sitting in my home office nowhere near Las Vegas. I have no inside information and no actual authority over any NFL franchise. If John Spytek wants to call me, though, I’m available.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money. For entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you can’t afford to lose.

Editor’s Note: In last week’s SNAP blog, I referred to the full multi-factor model as the Turner Street Index (TSI). That was incorrect. The TSI is actually just one component of the larger Turner Street Investment Model (TSIM), specifically the options sentiment piece. This post introduces the TSIM properly. I apologize for the confusion and appreciate your patience as I build this thing in public.

Let me start with a confession.

Last week I wrote about SNAP and introduced a model I called the Turner Street Index. I used that name like I understood exactly what it was. I didn’t. Not fully.

The Turner Street Index is actually just one piece of a larger framework. The full model has a different name: the Turner Street Investment Model, or TSIM. The TSI is a component inside of it, not the whole thing. Getting that wrong in a public post is exactly the kind of mistake I promised I’d own when I launched JPM Picks.

So. Let’s do this right.

How the TSIM Started

I’m not a quant. I’m not a fund manager. I’m a guy who got tired of making stock decisions based on vibes, hot takes, or whatever a internet influencer was excited about.

So, I started prompting ChatGPT with a simple idea: I want to build a comprehensive model that helps me formulate my own stock predictions. What I got back was a framework. What I’ve been doing since is trying to actually understand it, test it, and make it useful.

I’ll be honest with you: this model is still a work in progress. Version 1 is live. The weights that determine how much each factor influences the final score are still being refined. I don’t have it fully dialed in yet, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

What I do have is a repeatable structure. And repeatable beats random every time.

What the TSIM Actually Is

The Turner Street Investment Model is a six-factor equity evaluation framework. The whole point is to take a bunch of different ways of looking at a stock and blend them into one organized, consistent output.

Instead of asking “is this a good stock,” the TSIM asks six separate questions at once and scores each one. Then it blends those scores together to give you a cleaner picture than any single signal could.

Here are the six pillars:

• Fundamentals: Is the company financially healthy and reasonably priced? This looks at things like how the stock is valued compared to its peers, earnings growth relative to price, and return on equity. The foundation of the whole model.

• Relative Value: Is this stock cheap or expensive compared to similar companies? Fundamentals looks at the company itself. Relative Value looks at the company in the context of its peers.

• Technical: What is the stock actually doing in the market? This pillar looks at price trends and momentum, using moving averages and other signals to understand whether the stock is in a healthy trend or a deteriorating one.

• Turner Street Index (TSI) / Market Implied: What is the options market signaling? This is where the TSI name actually lives. It captures sentiment from the options market, things like implied volatility and put/call ratios, as a temperature check on how the market is positioned.

• Analyst: Where do outside analysts think this stock is headed? This takes the gap between analyst price targets and the current price and normalizes it into a score. If analysts I follow aren’t covering the stock, this pillar remains blank.

• Forecast: What does a probability-weighted scenario analysis say? This builds a bull case, a base case, and a bear case, assigns probabilities to each, and calculates an expected value. It’s the model asking: if you run the full range of outcomes, where does this land?

Each pillar gets scored on a zero to ten scale. Higher is better. The model then blends all six scores together, with some pillars weighted more heavily than others based on how much I trust them to predict forward performance. The exact weights are still being refined in V1, so I’m going to describe the philosophy rather than quote specific percentages: the model leans most heavily on fundamentals as the anchor, with technical signals as the second major driver, and the remaining four pillars contributing as supporting layers.

What the Model Actually Spits Out

Once the six pillars are scored and blended, the TSIM produces three summary numbers:

• Composite Score (0-10): The weighted average of all six pillars. This is the single number that represents the model’s overall view of the stock. Think of it as the headline grade.

• Consistency Score (0-10): This measures how much the six pillars agree with each other. High consistency means the model is telling one coherent story. Low consistency means the signals are conflicting, and I should probably dig deeper before acting on the number.

• Confidence Score (0-100%): This blends expected upside, the composite score, and the consistency score into a single conviction number. It’s the model asking: how much should I trust this setup? The higher the confidence score, the more willing I am to size a position meaningfully.

From there, the model produces a rating and a target price. The rating bands work like this: a composite score in the low range is a Sell or Avoid, the middle range is a Hold or Watch, and the high range is a Buy or Strong Buy. The target price is a 12-month fair value estimate based on what the model’s inputs imply about where the stock should trade.

Position Sizing (The Part I Actually Care About)

The model isn’t just for picking stocks. It’s for sizing positions.

A Sell or Avoid rating means zero allocation. A Hold rating caps out at a small position. A Buy or Strong Buy opens a larger allocation, scaled by the confidence score and the implied upside. The idea is that your highest-conviction plays should get the most capital, and your low-conviction holds should stay small.

If that sounds familiar, it’s the same logic I apply to sports betting. You don’t flat-bet every game at the same size regardless of how strong the spot is. You size based on conviction. The TSIM is just that principle applied to equities.

Why I Built It in the First Place

Because I needed a process.

Before the TSIM, my stock evaluations were a mess of instincts, half-remembered earnings calls, and whatever narrative was loudest in my feed that week. That’s not analysis. That’s noise with a trading account attached.

The TSIM forces me to slow down and answer the same questions the same way every time. Is the company healthy? Is it cheap relative to peers? What is the chart doing? What is the options market saying? What do analysts think? What do the scenarios imply? Six questions. Consistent answers. One output.

It’s not a crystal ball. I want to be very clear about that. The TSIM identifies relative opportunities. It does not guarantee price paths. The SNAP situation I described last week is a good example: my original target was based on stale data. The model was right to have a bullish lean on SNAP. The specific number was wrong because I hadn’t updated the inputs after earnings. That’s a user error, not a model error. And it’s exactly the kind of mistake a process is designed to catch.

What’s Next

Now that you understand the structure, the next post is going to walk through a live example. We’ll take a real stock, run it through the six pillars, and show you what the output actually looks like in practice.

I’ll also keep updating you as V1 matures. When the weights get finalized, I’ll tell you. When the model gets something wrong, I’ll tell you that too. Building this in public means the wins and the losses both go on the record.

That’s the whole deal with JPM Picks. Process over predictions. Transparency over polish. And never pretending I have a crystal ball when all I really have is framework and a willingness to do the work.

JPM Picks is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. The Turner Street Investment Model is an educational framework. Scores reflect relative rankings, not guarantees of future prices. Always do your own homework and never risk money you can’t afford to lose.

I Have Never Been Less Certain About a Season. That’s the Point.

I am four years into this F1 thing. Year one, I was figuring out what DRS was. Year two, I watched Max Verstappen win and win and win and told myself it was because I was a Red Bull fan and Red Bull was just built different. After all, their energy drink does give you wings. Year three, I watched my wife drool as Lando Norris won the championship instead of my guy Max. Year four, which is right now, I am sitting here trying to figure out what to make of a season where nobody knows anything yet.

Here is the honest truth about 2026: nobody knows anything yet.

The cars are completely new. The engines are completely new. The rule book got thrown in a blender and poured out fresh. Teams that dominated 2025 might not dominate 2026. Teams that were parked in the back of the order might be lurking at the front. The journalists I read are smart, experienced people who cover these races for a living, and even they are hedging more than usual.

That uncertainty is not a warning. It is an invitation.

New regulations are where markets misprice things. They are where value hides. And if you know how to read a line, a messy season opener in Melbourne on March 8th is more interesting than a predictable coronation in Abu Dhabi in December.

So let’s get into it.

What Actually Changed (The Short Version)

This is a bigger reset than anything F1 has done in over a decade. Nearly every piece of the car is different.

Smaller, Lighter Cars

The cars are physically smaller and lighter than the previous generation. The era of boats that were nearly impossible to follow closely through corners is over. In theory. We will see if that translates on track.

New Engines. New Rules. Sustainable Fuel.

The power unit has been overhauled completely. Teams are now running on 100% sustainable fuel and the electrical component of the powertrain carries more of the workload than ever before. This matters because some manufacturers are better at electrical power management than others, and that gap is already showing up in the data from Bahrain testing.

No More DRS

The drag reduction system that drivers used to manually activate for overtaking on straights is gone. It has been replaced by something called Overtake Mode, which is an active aerodynamics system that adjusts the car’s wing angles automatically. Nobody is totally sure how this plays out in wheel-to-wheel racing yet. That is either terrifying or exciting depending on your disposition. For me it is exciting.

The Big Idea

Active aerodynamics plus a more powerful electrical system means cars that are theoretically easier to follow and overtake. F1 has been chasing that goal for years. Whether the 2026 regulations actually deliver it is one of the most interesting storylines of the season.

The New Teams (Yes, This Is the Section I Was Most Excited to Write)

Cadillac F1

I have wanted a Cadillac CTS since before I could afford one. I am 45 years old and still do not own one, not because the dream faded but because I no longer drive. That is a fact I have made peace with. The dream has just taken a different form.

Cadillac entering Formula 1 is the most personally exciting thing to happen in my three years of watching this sport. I do not care that they qualified 10th in Bahrain testing. I do not care that the gap to the front runners is measured in multiple seconds right now. Every elite F1 team started somewhere, and a brand new team finishing their testing sessions without setting the pit lane on fire is, genuinely, a win.

The drivers are Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez. Bottas is 36, a former front-runner who spent years in the shadow of Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes and has never quite gotten his moment in the sun. He has six race wins and zero championships. That is a story I find genuinely compelling. If Bottas gets the car under him at some point this season, I want to watch what he does with it.

Perez is not here as a placeholder. He is a veteran who spent years as Verstappen's teammate at Red Bull, won multiple races, and knows exactly what a competitive F1 car feels like from the inside. That experience is exactly what a brand new team needs in year one when the feedback loop between driver and engineers matters more than raw pace.

My expectations for Cadillac in 2026 are simple: finish races, improve every month, and do not embarrass the brand. Anything beyond that is a bonus. The championship is not the goal right now and pretending otherwise would not be honest.

Cadillac to win Constructors Championship: Not a real line yet. Not a real conversation yet.

Pick ‘em Paul Rule: New teams are not investments. They are storylines. Enjoy them as such.

Audi F1

Audi entering F1 as a full works constructor, building their own power unit from scratch, is a massive undertaking. And based on Bahrain testing, they actually pulled it off at a respectable level. The fact that they are not sitting where Aston Martin is sitting right now is a genuine achievement.

The drivers are Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto. Hulkenberg has waited his entire career for a car good enough to compete at the front. He is 37 years old and has never stood on a podium in over 200 starts, which is one of the most absurd facts in motorsport. If Audi gives him that moment at some point, it will be one of the best stories of the year.

Bortoleto is 20, a Formula 2 champion, and looked genuinely fast during testing. He is the one I am watching develop in real time.

Audi’s goal is the long game. They said going in that they are building toward competitiveness over multiple seasons, not trying to win races in year one. That is the right mindset. It is also honest, which I appreciate.

The Big Four. And Why Nothing Is Settled.

Here is what makes 2026 different from the last few seasons: the hierarchy is genuinely unclear. The top four teams, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull, were all pointing at each other during testing like they knew something the others did not. It was the sports equivalent of four poker players staring each other down with unreadable faces.

Red Bull’s Laurent Mekies put it well. He said to expect the performance swings of 2025 multiplied by four or five. That is not a quote meant to scare people. That is a description of what a brand new regulation cycle actually looks like from the inside.

So here is where everyone seems to stand as we head into Melbourne.

Mercedes

The market favorite. The team most people in the paddock pointed at as the benchmark after testing. George Russell is the betting market’s top pick for the drivers championship, which makes sense given the car underneath him and the power unit advantage Mercedes reportedly carries into this new regulation era.

The interesting thing about Mercedes is how carefully they have been playing down their own advantage. For a team that usually projects confidence, they spent all of February telling anyone who would listen that they were not sure where they really stood. Some of that is classic gamesmanship. Some of it might be genuine. The long run data from Bahrain suggested they were consistently quick in race trim, which matters more than single-lap pace anyway.

Kimi Antonelli in the second seat is the fascinating subplot. He is 19 years old, in only his second F1 season, and driving for the team that the market thinks has the best car on the grid. He closed 2025 on a strong upswing with three late-season podiums. The potential is obvious. The question is whether that potential comes online fast enough to matter in a championship fight.

George Russell to win Drivers Championship: +200 (market favorite)

Kimi Antonelli: +900 (worth a small look for believers)

Mercedes Constructors: Favored

The JPM Take: The market is probably right that Mercedes is the benchmark. But +200 for a season that is this genuinely uncertain is not the slam dunk it looks like. The odds imply roughly a 33% chance. I have seen too many new regulation cycles eat the favorite alive to feel comfortable at that number.

Ferrari

If you watched the Bahrain test and only looked at lap times, Ferrari looks like the team to beat. Charles Leclerc set the fastest time of the entire preseason on the final day. Their race starts were described as rocket launches. The team has been unusually quiet about how good things look, which is either discipline or fear of jinxing it. With Ferrari, you never quite know which one it is.

The 2022 ghost is the reason everyone hesitates to fully board this train. That year Ferrari also looked fastest in testing, also won two of the first three races, and then proceeded to hand the championship to Red Bull through a combination of strategy errors and reliability failures. The scars are real.

But here is what the critics are missing: that was a different Ferrari. Under Frederic Vasseur, the culture has genuinely changed. The team that was famous for internal chaos and scapegoating now operates with something closer to calm professionalism. Nobody at Ferrari is getting too loud right now. That itself is different from 2022.

Lewis Hamilton is in his second season with the team. Last year was rough. He was outperformed by Leclerc and looked like a driver still fighting the car. The thinking going in is that the new regulations, which abandon the ground-effect era he famously disliked, might suit him better. If Hamilton finds himself at something like 90% of his peak in this car, Ferrari suddenly has an argument for the strongest driver pairing on the grid.

Charles Leclerc: +500 (the number that surprised me at the window -- more on this in the picks section)

Lewis Hamilton: +650 (long shot with a narrative)

Ferrari Constructors: +250 (good value if you believe the testing data)

The JPM Take: My original research had Leclerc much longer than +500. I rolled into my local casino expecting a bargain and found the market had already moved closer to where the testing data pointed. I took it anyway because the argument still holds. If Ferrari’s car is as fast as it looked in Bahrain and the team avoids the 2022 implosion pattern, +500 on the fastest car in preseason testing is still a number worth being on.

McLaren

The defending constructors champion. Lando Norris won the drivers title last year. They arrive in 2026 as the team that knows it probably is not the benchmark anymore and has made peace with that.

McLaren ran more laps than anyone during Bahrain testing, which tells you about the organization’s character. They were third in the single-lap standings and roughly on pace with Red Bull across a race distance. Not the fastest. Not out of it. The team carries the quiet confidence of a champion that knows how to build through a season.

The Norris and Oscar Piastri dynamic is the subplot worth tracking. Piastri led the 2025 championship for much of the year before a rough final stretch let Norris come through. He finished strong, won the penultimate race, and enters 2026 having made changes to his team setup and support structure. McLaren has said they will continue some version of Papaya Rules, their team order policy. How that plays out if both drivers are genuinely competitive is the internal drama to watch.

Lando Norris: +1000 (defending champ, market has moved on quickly)

Oscar Piastri: +1400 (worth a look if you believe in the bounce-back)

The JPM Take: The market moving Norris from champion to +1000 in one offseason is jarring. Part of that is Mercedes and Ferrari testing data. Part of that is the uncertainty of a new regulation cycle. Norris at +1000 is genuinely interesting if McLaren gets its car sorted in the first few races. The risk is real. So is the value.

Red Bull

Red Bull enters 2026 with a genuinely fascinating new challenge: they are now their own engine manufacturer through a partnership with Ford. The RB21 era is over. This is the RB22 and a power unit they built themselves. That partnership was widely expected to be a disaster heading into testing. It was not.

Reliability was solid throughout Bahrain. Verstappen reported being genuinely happy with where the car is. The mood out of Milton Keynes was quiet confidence rather than panic, which is exactly what you want to see from a team doing something brand new at the highest level of motorsport.

The honest assessment from the data is that they are probably fourth in the current pecking order. But Red Bull in fourth going into race one of a new regulation era is a completely different animal than Red Bull in fourth during a stable era. This organization has built a culture of development that is unmatched in modern F1. They have come from behind before. They will come from behind again.

Isack Hadjar is in the second seat after a strong 2025 in the feeder series. The second Red Bull seat has historically been one of the more difficult places in F1 to thrive. Hadjar is talented. He is also 21 years old and being placed under a microscope from race one. Managing expectations for him through the first half of the season is important, for his sake and for anyone betting on his results.

Max Verstappen: +300 (second in the market, still one of the best drivers alive)

Isack Hadjar: +10000 (Fun longshot pick)

The JPM Take: Verstappen at +300 is the market saying he is a one-in-four shot at a fifth title. The car is realistically fourth right now. The odds assume he can outperform his machinery to a significant degree, which he has done before, more than once. This is not a fade on Verstappen the driver. This is a question about whether the price fairly reflects the car underneath him. On that narrow question, I think there is better value elsewhere on the board.

The Midfield. Where Things Get Interesting.

Haas

The American team that is no longer F1’s only American team. Haas enters 2026 in a genuinely strong position for the upper midfield, runs Ferrari’s engine, and has a driver lineup that could be genuinely exciting.

Oliver Bearman is 20 years old and was one of 2025’s better stories. His drive to fourth in Mexico was the kind of performance that makes you believe in a driver’s ceiling. Esteban Ocon is a former race winner with plenty of front-running experience. This is a real lineup, not a placeholder.

Multiple analysts had Haas fifth in the predicted running order. Some had them closer to Alpine. Both would represent a massive step for a team that spent most of the previous regulation era fighting for scraps. Ferrari’s engine advantage at the starts could vault Haas into strong grid positions early, and if the field is close enough together, position matters.

The pick from here: Bearman to get a podium before the season ends is a legitimate bet. Not a banker. A legitimate bet.

Alpine

The most interesting surprise candidate coming out of testing. Alpine finished dead last in 2025. They enter 2026 with a Mercedes engine, a streamlined focus on the new regulations, and a car that looked like the front of the midfield in Bahrain.

Pierre Gasly was one of 2025’s standout performers and is the team’s clear competitive leader. Multiple F1 writers flagged Alpine as their pick for biggest surprise of the season. The logic is straightforward: they turned their attention to 2026 earlier than most, they made the smart call to switch to Mercedes power, and they showed up in Bahrain looking like a completely different team.

The caveat is that Bahrain is one of Alpine’s historically stronger circuits. Whether that pace transfers to other tracks is the question mark. But a team that went from last to potentially top-of-midfield in one offseason is a team worth watching.

Aston Martin

The cautionary tale of this regulation cycle. Aston Martin arrived at Bahrain testing and had a nightmare.

The Honda power unit is clearly not where it needs to be. The team ran fewer laps than any other constructor during testing and ended with the slowest time on the grid. The organization that was supposed to be the coming superteam, the one Fernando Alonso called the team of the future, showed up looking like it was fighting to not be last.

Adrian Newey, the legendary car designer who was supposed to make Aston Martin a championship contender, spent much of the test away from the cameras. The team’s messaging shifted dramatically over those two weeks, from 2026 is our year to 2027 and 2028 are when we expect to compete. That is a brutal pivot.

Alonso at 44 years old is watching another would-be title contender crumble around him. He has been here before, with Honda power at McLaren a decade ago. Whether he finishes the 2026 season with Aston Martin is a legitimate question ESPN is asking openly. I have no reason to think they are wrong to ask it.

The JPM fade: Aston Martin futures of any kind. The legacy premium on this team is gone. The reality on the ground is that they are fighting the brand-new Cadillac team for position at the back of the grid. That is where the money should be placed or not placed.

Where Volatility Lives in 2026

New regulations create chaos. Here is where I am watching for it.

The First Three Races

Australia, China, Japan. Three very different circuits. Teams will arrive to each with upgrade packages they could not complete before Melbourne. The order in race one will likely look different from the order in race five. The market prices season-long futures. That means early overreactions to race one results will create opportunities for anyone paying attention to the actual underlying pace.

The Start Advantage

Ferrari’s smaller turbo configuration appears to give them a significant launch advantage off the line. Multiple analysts noted that both Leclerc and Hamilton were making incredible starts in practice during testing. If Ferrari can consistently jump to the lead at Turn 1 and then manage tire strategy from there, they can outperform what the pure qualifying pace data would suggest. That is a real edge in the early races before rivals find solutions.

The Development Race

Red Bull’s team principal described the expected in-season performance swings as four to five times larger than a normal year. If he is right, the team that is fastest in Australia might not be the team that is fastest in Singapore. That makes season-long championship futures more volatile than usual, which means the favorite’s odds will likely look too short by midseason if one of the Ferrari or Red Bull development programs kicks in hard.

Honda and the Bottom of the Grid

Aston Martin’s power unit situation is the most obvious single point of unpredictability. F1 has built a catch-up mechanism into the new regulations called additional development and update opportunities for manufacturers who are clearly behind. Honda appears to qualify for that. How quickly they can close the gap, and whether any of that improvement shows up before the season is half over, is a storyline that affects every race near the back of the grid.

Where the Odds Are Lying

This is the JPM Picks section. The part where we ask whether the numbers are telling the truth.

Leclerc at +500 is still the number I like most.

I will be honest: I rolled into my local casino expecting him to be much longer. My pre-trip research had him at a price that felt like a genuine oversight by the market. The market had already partially corrected by the time I got to the window. I took it anyway because the argument has not changed. Ferrari tested fastest. The starts are a real competitive weapon. The culture under Vasseur is genuinely different from 2022. Getting the driver of arguably the fastest preseason car at plus money before a single green light falls in Melbourne is still a number I want to be on.

Norris at +1000 is interesting as a value play.

The market moved the defending champion from the top of the board to fourth favorite in one offseason because of car uncertainty. If McLaren’s early upgrades bring them back into the fight by race three or four, those numbers will never be available again. The risk is buying in and watching McLaren spend the first half of the season a full second off the pace. That risk is real. The value is also real.

Ferrari Constructors at +250 is arguably the clearest value spot on the board.

If you believe even half of what the testing data suggests about their car, and you believe the culture has genuinely changed, getting Ferrari at plus money for the constructors title before Melbourne feels like a number the market will not offer for long.

Verstappen at +300 is where I am most cautious.

This is not about the driver. Verstappen is one of the best to ever sit in an F1 car. This is about the car. The data from Bahrain places Red Bull fourth. Getting +300 on a fourth-place car requires you to believe Verstappen can consistently outperform his machinery to a significant degree. He has done that before. But at +300 you are paying a substantial premium for that possibility at a moment when new regulation uncertainty makes the downside very real. There is better value elsewhere without needing to dismiss Verstappen at all.

Hadjar at +10000 is the moonshot worth knowing about.

He is a 21-year-old driver in a car that is currently fourth in the pecking order. The second Red Bull seat has eaten talented drivers before. The odds reflect all of that honestly. But if Red Bull’s development program kicks in hard mid-season and Hadjar finds his footing at the same time, a small ticket on a 100-to-1 shot is the kind of thing that makes a random Sunday race in July considerably more interesting to watch. You do not need to believe in him to take the ticket. You just need to believe the season is going to be chaotic enough that anything can happen. And it will be.

The JPM Pick. With Appropriate Hedging.

I am not Pick ‘em Paul the Baseball Guy doing a Dodgers three-peat call here. This is not that kind of certainty. Nobody has that kind of certainty about 2026 F1. The experts do not. The teams do not. The markets, which are usually pretty good at aggregating information, are more scattered than I have seen them in recent memory.

But I run a picks newsletter. I have to land somewhere. So here it is.

JPM Picks: Charles Leclerc, Drivers Championship.

Ferrari, Constructors Championship.

I want to be clear about what I am and am not saying here. I am not saying Ferrari will not make mistakes. They have a long history of making mistakes. I am not saying the testing data is gospel. It is preseason data, which has fooled everyone before.

What I am saying is this: the price on Leclerc and on Ferrari does not reflect what I actually saw in the data from Bahrain. I went to the casino expecting an even bigger bargain on Leclerc and found the market had already started to move. It had not moved enough. The fastest car in testing belongs to the team with the +500 driver and the +250 constructors price. That gap between performance data and market price is where JPM Picks looks for value. I found it, placed the bet, and now I have to live with it. That is the process.

If I am wrong, I will tell you exactly how I got it wrong and what I will do differently. That is the process.

The hedge, because this is not baseball: if Ferrari hits another 2022-style implosion by June, I reserve the right to acknowledge that Vasseur or no Vasseur, sometimes the Scuderia just does Scuderia things. I am aware of the risk I am taking on with this pick. That awareness is the whole point.

The Three Storylines I Am Personally Most Interested In

1. Cadillac’s First Points

They are not going to fight for wins. They are going to fight to be respectable, which team boss Graeme Lowdon has said directly. But somewhere in this 24-race calendar there will be a chaotic race, a safety car at the right moment, a Ferrari failure that clears the path, and Valtteri Bottas or Sergio Perez will come across the line in the points. When that happens, watch the Cadillac garage. That moment is going to be something.

2. Whether Alonso Finishes the Season

This is not a cold take. ESPN’s paddock reporters are asking it openly. Alonso at 44 watching a car that cannot keep up with a brand new team is not a situation that has an obvious happy ending. If Honda cannot fix the power unit by summer, and the politics at Aston Martin get worse instead of better, Fernando Alonso might just decide he has had enough. That would be one of the biggest stories of the year.

3. Russell and Verstappen

These two have legitimate beef. Russell called Verstappen a bully. Verstappen called Russell a backstabber. Then Verstappen drove into the side of Russell’s car at the Spanish Grand Prix last year. Now they are both fighting for a championship, in cars that might be close enough to regularly put them in the same battles. This has the energy of a rivalry that is going to produce some genuinely dramatic moments. Stock up on popcorn.

Enjoy the Season Everyone.

My boys don’t text people. Not really. If you send them an SMS, you might as well have sent a fax.

They Snap.

Their friends Snap. Their social operating system runs through Snapchat, and it has for years. I’ve watched it up close long enough to know this isn’t a phase. It’s a habit. And habits in 14-year-olds have a way of becoming infrastructure.

So when $SNAP started showing up in my options screening, I didn’t need a Wall Street thesis to get interested. I had two teenagers and a lot of anecdotal evidence sitting in my house.

I ran it through my model, which I call the Turner Street Index (or TSI). I got a target price of $7.64.

The stock is currently trading around $5.16. It’s down over 30% in the past month.

I own shares. I’m underwater. And I’m still bullish.

Here’s the honest version of why. Bear case included.

First: What Is the Turner Street Index?

Before I get into the $SNAP case, let me explain where that $7.64 number comes from.

The Turner Street Index (TSI) is a multi-factor stock evaluation model I built to give myself a structured, repeatable way to evaluate equities. It’s not a crystal ball. It’s a framework.

The TSI scores a stock across six pillars, each rated 0 to 10:

• Fundamentals 🏦: P/E vs peers, PEG ratio, dividend yield, ROE

• Analyst 🎯: where analysts have price targets relative to current price

• Technical 📈: moving average alignment and RSI

• Market Implied 📊: options market signals like put/call ratio and implied volatility

• Relative Value ⚖️: how the stock is valued versus its peers

• Forecast 🔮: probability-weighted bull/base/bear scenario expected value

Those six scores get blended into a Composite Score (0-10), a Consistency Score (how much the pillars agree with each other), and a Confidence Score (0-100%) that combines upside, composite, and consistency into a single conviction number.

The output is a target price and a rating: Sell, Hold, Buy, or Strong Buy.

After re-running $SNAP through the TSI with post-earnings data: JPM Picks Target Price: $7.64. Current Price: $5.16. Implied Upside: +48%.

A note on process, and why this matters.

My original TSI target on $SNAP was $10.04. That number was built months ago and never updated when new earnings came in. That stale target is exactly why I was comfortable selling cash-secured puts closer to fair value than I realized at the time. The gap between $10.04 and $7.64 tells you everything about what one or two earnings cycles can do to a stocks outlook.

Lesson learned, and worth sharing: update your model when earnings drop. A stale target price is worse than no target price because it gives you false confidence. I’m writing that down so you don’t make the same mistake.

The TSI is an educational framework. Scores reflect relative rankings, not guaranteed price paths. Not financial advice.

The Bear Case. And It’s Real.

Let’s not skip past this. The market didn’t panic for no reason. If you’re thinking about $SNAP right now, you need to understand what spooked everyone after Q4 2025 earnings.

• North American DAUs dropped hard. Daily active users in North America fell by 4 million in a single quarter, from 98 million to 94 million. That’s Snap’s most monetizable user base, and it shrank.

• Q1 2026 guidance missed. Snap guided $1.50B-$1.53B in Q1 revenue. Wall Street wanted $1.55B. Not catastrophic, but enough to confirm the bear narrative.

• The CTO sold shares. $SNAP’s Chief Technology officer, Robert C. Murphy sold 2 million shares near all-time lows. Worth noting, it was under a pre-arranged trading plan, not a spontaneous sell. Still, the timing doesn’t help sentiment.

• Regulatory risk is real. Age verification laws are already costing users in Australia. More legislation is working through the courts in the U.S. If Snap’s core demographic gets legislated off the platform in key markets, that’s an existential problem, not a quarterly blip.

I’m not going to tell you those concerns are wrong. They’re legitimate. The market isn’t stupid.

But I don’t think the market is entirely right either.

The Bull Case. What Didn’t Make the Headlines.

Here’s what got buried under the DAU noise:

• Revenue beat. Q4 revenue came in at $1.72 billion, up 10% year-over-year, ahead of estimates.

• They actually made money. Net income was $45 million, compared to $9 million a year ago. This is a company that bled red ink for years. Profitability is new, and it’s real.

• EBITDA expanded. Adjusted EBITDA hit $358 million, up from $276 million the prior year. Margins are moving in the right direction.

• Snapchat+ is growing fast. Subscribers hit 24 million, up 71% year-over-year. That’s recurring subscription revenue, not purely ad-dependent. It matters more than people think.

• $2.9 billion in cash. They’re not going anywhere. And they announced a $500 million stock buyback. At $5 a share, that buyback hits differently than it does at $11.

• 946 million monthly active users. Approaching 1 billion. The engagement isn’t gone. It’s the daily monetizable users in North America that are the problem. That’s a real problem, but it’s a different problem than nobody uses Snapchat anymore.

And here’s the part the model can’t fully capture: my kids still can’t put it down.

Every generation gets one or two apps that become genuinely load-bearing in their social lives. For Gen Z and the cohort behind them, Snapchat is one of those apps. You don’t just delete load-bearing infrastructure because the stock price is struggling.

The Trade. Full Transparency.

I own shares of $SNAP. I’m underwater on the position. I’m not going to get into the exact numbers, but I’ll tell you this: I entered with conviction, the stock has moved against me, and I haven’t flinched.

Being underwater doesn’t mean being wrong. It means being early, or being wrong, and you don’t always know which one it is until more time passes.

What I’m not doing is letting a bad month talk me out of a thesis I built before the noise started.

What I’m planning next: I’m going to start selling covered calls on my shares to grind down my cost basis while I wait. Premium doesn’t fix everything, but it’s better than just watching a red position and doing nothing.

If you’re not familiar with how covered calls work as a cost basis tool, that’s exactly what the Options 101 post covers. The short version: you collect premium on shares you already own, and that premium slowly chips away at what you paid.

Would I Sell a Cash-Secured Put on $SNAP Right Now?

This is the question I run through my checklist every time before I sell any put. Let’s walk through it for $SNAP at current prices.

• ✅ Is this a stock I’d be comfortable owning long term? Yes. I already own it and I’m not flinching.

• ✅ Do I understand the business? Camera company. Messaging app with near-total penetration in the 13-25 demographic. Pivoting toward subscriptions and AR. One sentence: Snapchat owns the social layer of Gen Z’s daily life and is trying to monetize it without killing it.

• ✅ Is the options market liquid enough? Yes. Active options chain with reasonable spreads.

• ⚠️ Where are we in the chart? Down 30%+ in a month off earnings. That’s not a normal dip. That’s a structural re-rating. Catching a falling knife is a real risk. I’d want to see the stock stabilize before pressing harder.

• ⚠️ Is there more bad news coming? Potentially. Regulatory risk isn’t priced out. Q1 guidance was soft. The next earnings report will matter a lot.

My honest answer: I’m not adding aggressively at $5. But if I didn’t already own shares and my TSI still says $7.64, I’m looking at the $4.50 strike cash-secured put, far enough out of the money to give the stock room to breathe, with enough premium to make the wait worthwhile.

What Would Break the Thesis

The thesis breaks if:

• North American DAUs keep falling for 2-3 more quarters without finding a floor

• The regulatory environment gets materially worse in the U.S., not just Australia

• Snapchat+ subscriber growth stalls and the pivot to subscription revenue fails

• A competitor eats the core demographic (TikTok is the obvious name, but Instagram has been trying and failing at this for years)

None of those have happened yet. But I’m watching all of them. If the story changes, I’ll tell you in the Substack Notes

The Pick ’em Paul Bottom Line

I’m underwater. I know it. I’m not hiding it.

The TSI says $7.64. The stock is at $5.16. That’s a 48% implied upside if the model is in the right zip code. The bear case is real but not new. The Q4 numbers were mixed, not broken. And the product still works in my house every single day.

I’m selling covered calls, staying patient, and watching the next quarter like a hawk.

Pick ’em Paul Rule: Being underwater doesn’t mean being wrong. It means your thesis is being tested. Pass or fail, you’ll learn something either way.

This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Do your own homework and never risk money you can’t afford to lose.

Have a $SNAP take? Considering a covered call or cash-secured put setup of your own? Hit reply. I’d love to hear how you’re thinking about it.

Baseball Is Broken. The Dodgers Will Three-Peat.

There. I said it. I’ve got nowhere to run from this take, and honestly, I can’t run anyway.

Last year, I refused to pick the Dodgers. Not because I thought they’d lose but because I knew in my gut no one was beating them. At the same time, I felt there was no value in the number. Picking a prohibitive favorite felt lazy. It felt like cheating. So, I talked myself into the Braves from a chat with a co-worker and a free $10 bet from ESPN bet. We all know how that turned out, I proceeded to watch the Dodgers win their second straight World Series title at +240 while I watched my 8-1 digital bet evaporate into thin air.

Here’s what I got wrong: process matters, but sometimes the process leads you straight back to the obvious answer. The Dodgers aren’t just good. They aren’t just well-run. They are operating on a different level than every other organization in baseball, and at some point, intellectual honesty means saying the quiet part out loud.

Baseball is broken right now. The Dodgers broke it.

So, this year, I’m picking the Dodgers at +225. Not because it’s safe. Because it’s correct. And if you’re going to bet on the World Series futures market, you’re not betting against the Dodgers, you’re betting on who survives the AL long enough to make it interesting.

That’s where this preview lives. Let’s get into it.

Quick note: Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money — for entertainment purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice. Bet responsibly, keep it fun, never risk money you can’t afford to lose.

American League East

The Division: Tighter Than It Looks

The AL East is going to be a war again, which is its natural state of being. New York is the consensus AL pick everywhere you look and yes, the Yankees are good. They’re always good. But “always good” and “World Series” are two very different things, and the market is pricing the Yankees like they’ve already won something they haven’t won since 2009.

Toronto made it to the World Series last year and lost in seven games to the Dodgers. Blue Jays fans will tell you they were one bounce away from a championship. They’re right. They’ll also tell you that core is still intact and hungry. They’re right about that too. Toronto is the team in this division with genuine unfinished business, and they enter 2026 as the defending AL pennant winners.

Baltimore continues to be one of the best-run organizations in baseball. Young. Athletic. Quietly dangerous. The Orioles don’t make a lot of noise in February, but they have a way of showing up in September.

Boston is lurking. They were a wild card team last year and they’re not satisfied. Watch them in the second half.

Division Pick: Toronto Blue Jays +255, with Baltimore as the team that keeps everyone honest.

American League Central

The Division: Detroit’s Window Is Open

The AL Central doesn’t get the respect it deserves, and that’s fine. Less attention means better odds.

Detroit made the playoffs last year as a wild card. They pushed Seattle to five games in the ALDS before bowing out, and that series felt closer than the result suggests. The Tigers are young, they’re hungry, and they’re building something real. Tarik Skubal anchors one of the better rotations in the American League. Their lineup has more depth than they did a year ago. FanGraphs projects them as a genuine contender, not just a participant.

Cleveland is Cleveland, perpetually underrated, perpetually competitive. The Guardians don’t spend money like the big market clubs, but they develop talent at an elite level, and they manufacture wins in ways that don’t always show up on a highlight reel. They were in the playoff picture all last year and there’s no obvious reason for that to change.

Minnesota has pieces. Kansas City is still finding their footing after a promising rebuild. Chicago needs more time.

Division Pick: Detroit Tigers +130, and this is not a lukewarm take.

American League West

The Division: Seattle’s Moment or Houston’s Ghost?

Seattle went to the ALCS last year and lost to Toronto in seven. The Mariners have been the “almost” team for so long that it’s practically part of their brand. Almost. This year feels different — but it always feels different in Seattle until it doesn’t.

The pitching staff is legitimate. George Kirby is one of the best starters in the AL. The offense still has questions. If they can answer even one of those questions in the lineup, they’re a World Series contender. If they can’t, they’re a good team that loses in October again.

Houston is fading. I’ll get into this more in the Fade section, but the dynasty is over. The window has closed. The market hasn’t fully priced that in yet.

Texas is rebuilding after a World Series hangover. The Angels remain the most confusing franchise in baseball.

Division Pick: Seattle Mariners +120. Their fans deserve another great year.

National League East

The Division: Everyone’s Sleeping on Atlanta

The NL East is loaded, which makes it one of the most interesting divisions to watch all summer. And according to the market, it’s basically a two-team race before it even starts.

The Mets are the favorites at +170, and honestly, it’s not hard to see why. They grabbed Freddy Peralta this offseason, which is the kind of move that makes you sit up straight. Peralta is a legitimate top-of-rotation arm and the Mets rotation suddenly looks a lot scarier than it did in October. Big payroll, big expectations, and a fanbase that is ready to believe again. The market loves them. I respect them.

Philadelphia is right behind at +175, essentially a coin flip with New York. The Phillies are never out of anything. They’re well-managed, deep, and dangerous in October. If you told me the Phillies won the NL East, I wouldn’t blink.

But here’s where I’m landing: Atlanta at +200. Third choice in a division where the top two teams are separated by five cents on the dollar. The Braves had a down year in 2025 with injuries, terrible timing, and bad luck but the roster is still elite when healthy. Ronald Acuña Jr., when right, is one of the five best players in baseball. The pitching has depth. The front office knows what it’s doing. The market is so distracted by the Mets’ offseason moves and the Phillies’ consistency that they’ve quietly left Atlanta sitting at a number that implies they’re an afterthought. They’re not an afterthought. They’re a bounce-back story with a +200 price tag. That’s the sweet spot for JPM Picks.

Washington and Miami are building toward something. Just not this year.

Division Pick: Atlanta Braves +200 The market is looking the wrong way, and I’m fine with that.

National League Central

The Division: I Can’t Pick My Own Team (And Here’s Why)

Full disclosure before we get into this one: I’m a lifelong Brewers fan. Wisconsin born, and loyal to the Brewers. I want nothing more than to pick the Crew to win this division every single year for the rest of my life.

I also have a futures ticket sitting on the Brewers to finish under 84.5 wins. So.

Here’s the honest case against Milwaukee in 2026: losing Freddy Peralta to the Mets hurts more than the market is acknowledging. Peralta wasn’t just a good pitcher, he was the identity of that rotation. Brandon Woodruff is a question mark coming off an injury-riddled 2025, and frankly, nobody knows if he’s the same guy until we see him healthy and actually pitching. And then there’s Misiorowski the kid throws absolute gas, and I believe in him long-term, (he’s my favorite pitcher on the staff with Tobias Myers gone as well) but the league is going to have a full offseason of tape on him now. Hitters adjust. That’s baseball. I love the Brewers. I bet the under on the Brewers. Both of those things are true and I’m comfortable with that.

So, if not Milwaukee, then who? The Cubs are the obvious answer at better odds and I genuinely considered it, even as a Cubs hater. But I keep landing on Cincinnati at +400.

Here’s the Reds case: they made the playoffs last year, so this isn’t a rebuild narrative, it’s a momentum narrative. Eugenio Suárez came back to Cincinnati and hit 49 home runs last season. 49, and he’s back to protect Elly De La Cruz in the lineup. Hunter Greene is on the verge of becoming one of the nastiest arms in the National League. The front office reinforced the bullpen this winter. And +400 means the market is treating them like a fringe contender when they’re a team with a genuine ceiling if the lineup clicks and Greene takes that next step.

Is it a lock? No, I don’t do locks. Is it interesting at four-to-one? Absolutely.

Division Pick: Cincinnati Reds +400 My heart says Milwaukee, my futures ticket disagrees with my heart, and my brain says take the Reds.

National League West

The Division: And Then There’s LA

What do I even say here?

The Dodgers won the World Series in 2024. Then they won it again in 2025. They enter 2026 as the unanimous favorite with a projected 100-win season and a 28% World Series probability according to early FanGraphs models which, to be clear, means they’re roughly 3x more likely to win it all than the next best team.

Shohei Ohtani is still Shohei Ohtani. Freddie Freeman is still Freddie Freeman. Their rotation has more depth than any other team in baseball. Their front office has more resources and more intelligence than anyone else operating right now.

San Diego has talent. San Francisco is interesting in a low-key way. Arizona made a World Series run a couple years ago and people haven’t forgotten that. Colorado exists.

But this division belongs to the Dodgers, and it isn’t close. The question for NL West teams isn’t “can we win the division” — it’s “can we get a wild card and maybe catch the Dodgers on a bad night in October.” The answer to the second question is almost certainly no.

Division Pick: Los Angeles Dodgers. -600 Obviously.

Three Sleepers Worth Your Attention

1. Cincinnati Reds

The Reds made the playoffs last year and the market is somehow still treating them like a fringe contender. And yet here they are, sitting at +400 to win the NL Central. You don’t need the Reds to be great to make that number interesting. You just need them to be better than the market thinks. I believe they are.

2. Atlanta Braves

I picked Atlanta last year and they broke my heart. I’m picking them again, not because I’m stubborn, but because the case is stronger in 2026. A full healthy season from Acuña changes everything. The rotation has depth. The market is so focused on the Mets and Phillies that Atlanta is sitting at +200 in their own division, third choice on the board. That’s not a reflection of their talent. That’s a reflection of where the attention is pointing right now.

Atlanta as a World Series dark horse, not the pick, but the team that could genuinely surprise if the Dodgers stumble.

3. Baltimore Orioles

Young core. Elite front office. A farm system that keeps producing. The Orioles have been building quietly for years and the window is open. They’re not going to sneak up on anyone anymore. The league knows they’re coming, but they’re still being priced as a “nice story” rather than a legitimate contender. That gap between perception and reality is where value lives.

Watch Baltimore in August. If they’re in the race in August, they’ll be dangerous in October.

Two Teams to Fade

1. Houston Astros

I don’t enjoy this one. The Astros dynasty was legitimately impressive, a sustained run of excellence that deserves respect. But it’s over.

Houston missed the playoffs entirely in 2025. The aging core that carried them through their run is no longer operating at peak levels. The farm system hasn’t replenished the way it needs to. And yet the market still prices the Astros with dynasty tax, a legacy premium baked into their odds that doesn’t reflect the actual roster they’re running out there in 2026.

This isn’t about being contrarian. This is about looking at what the team is versus what the brand still implies. The Astros brand says perennial contender. The 2026 roster says fighting for a wild card spot. When those two things diverge, that’s where the edge lives. Fade Houston futures. Respect the dynasty. Don’t pay for it.

2. Milwaukee Brewers

Yeah. I know. I already told you I have a futures ticket on the Brewers under 84.5 wins, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But it bears repeating in plain language: I am a lifelong Brewers fan, and I am fading my own team. That’s not a bit. That’s the process...

Milwaukee is a well-run organization that has earned every bit of goodwill it has built. They’ll be competitive. They’ll grind. But winning 85+ games in 2026 with this rotation situation? I’m not paying for that. Under 84.5, small ticket, zero guilt.

The Pick: Dodgers over Tigers

Here’s the thing about having a process, sometimes the process leads you right back to the obvious answer. The honest move is to stop fighting it.

Los Angeles Dodgers +130 versus Detroit Tigers +1100. World Series 2026.

The Dodgers are going to three-peat. I believe this more than I’ve believed any sports prediction in recent memory. They are better than everyone else. They are better-run than everyone else. And unless something catastrophic happens to their roster between now and October, they are going to be standing on a field in late October holding a trophy again.

The Tigers are my AL pick not because I think they’ll beat the Dodgers, I don’t. But, because I think they’re the most interesting story in the American League. A young team, trending up, with long enough odds to make the futures bet meaningful. If you’re going to bet the AL pennant market, Detroit is where I’m looking.

Dodgers win in five. I learned my lesson last year. Never again.

The JPM Take: Where the Odds Are Lying

A few spots worth watching from a pure probability standpoint as we head into the season:

The Dodgers’ World Series price will look short all year, and it probably is short. But “short” doesn’t mean wrong. Don’t let the odds talk you out of the right answer, that’s the mistake I made last year.

Houston futures are inflated by legacy pricing. If you’re looking for a fade spot in the NL or AL futures markets, that’s your clearest signal.

Detroit and Baltimore division odds are worth a look before Spring Training ends. Both teams are projected better than their current market perception, and that gap closes as the season approaches.

The AL East is going to be chaotic. Toronto, New York, and Baltimore are all legitimate playoff teams. That means wild card spots in the AL will be genuinely competitive, and the division title will come down to September. Those late-season games are going to have real juice.

As always, this is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money. The analysis is real; (as much as it can be for a guy on the internet), the money is not. Watch the lines, track the movement, and never bet more than you can afford to learn from.

See you at first pitch.

Don’t forget to comment and let us know your predictions this baseball season.

— Pick ‘em Paul

JPM Picks is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly.

Let’s be honest: “stock options” sounds like one of those things you need a finance degree (and three monitors) to understand.

You don’t. (In fact, I only have one 32” monitor.)

Most beginners get tripped up because they start in the wrong place—chasing big wins, YOLO trades, and screenshot-worthy lottery tickets.

This is JPM Picks, not Wall Street Bets.

We’re keeping it simple: calls, puts, and how premium works. For now, we’re building the foundation the smart way: simple, repeatable moves that can help you collect premium and improve your entry/exit prices on stocks you’d be happy to own.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this post:

• What options are in plain English (no jargon soup)

• The difference between a call and a put

• How options can be used for income, risk management, and better stock prices

• Two beginner-friendly strategies I consider the “bread and butter” for most normal humans:

• Covered calls (getting paid to potentially sell shares you already own)

• Cash-secured puts (getting paid while waiting to buy a stock at a price you want)

If you’ve ever said, “I like this stock, I just wish I could buy it cheaper” or “I wouldn’t mind selling here if I could get paid extra,” you’re in the right place.

So, what is a stock option really, and what are you agreeing to when you click “Sell to Open”? Let’s break it down.

The 60-Second Options Primer

An option is just a contract, and every contract has the same four pieces:

• The underlying stock (AAPL, NFLX, etc.)

• Strike price: the agreed price

• Expiration: the deadline

• Premium: the price of the contract (what gets paid today)

Here’s the part most beginners miss: options are “rights” or “obligations,” depending on whether you buy or sell them.

First, remember this: 1 option contract = 100 shares.
So a premium quote of $1.25 usually means $125 (because $1.25 × 100).

Now the big split:

• Buying options = you pay premium for rights (you can walk away).

• Selling options = you collect premium for obligations (you might have to act).

And if your trading app looks like it’s speaking another language, here’s the translation:

• Buy to Open = start a bought option

• Sell to Open = start a sold option

• Buy to Close = end a sold option

• Sell to Close = end a bought option

If you remember nothing else from this section, remember this:
Premium hits your account today. The obligation only becomes real if you’re assigned.

Next, we’ll zoom in on calls vs puts, without the jargon headache.

Calls and Puts (In Plain English)

Options get complicated fast. But the foundation is always the same: calls and puts. Most of what I do as an options trader starts with puts, then moves to calls.

Put (buy-at-this-price contract)

A put is the ‘buy at this price’ contract.

• If you sell a put, you’re taking on the obligation to buy shares at the strike price if you get assigned.

• If you buy a put, you’re paying for the right to sell shares at the strike price before expiration.

Think: Put = someone can “put” shares onto you.

Call (sell-at-this-price contract)

A call is the ‘sell at this price’ contract.

• If you sell a call, you’re taking on the obligation to sell shares at the strike price if you get assigned. (This is what I do most when it comes to calls.)

• If you buy a call, you’re paying for the right to buy shares at the strike price before expiration.

Think: Call = someone can “call” the shares away from you.

That’s the whole game: puts are about buying (or agreeing to buy), and calls are about selling (or agreeing to sell). Whether you buy or sell determines if you have rights or obligations.

Buying an option is like taking a shot. Selling an option is like setting the line; you’re getting paid because you’re taking the other side.

Next up: we’ll start with the simplest income play for stock owners, covered calls.

Covered Calls (Getting Paid to Set a Sell Price)

A covered call is the simplest “premium income” play there is, as long as you already own the stock.

Here’s the idea:

You own 100 shares of a stock you like. Then you sell a call against those shares. (“Sell to Open” like we talked about in the previous section.)

When you sell that call, you get paid a premium upfront. In exchange, you’re making a deal:

“If this stock gets above this price (the strike) by this date (expiration), I’ll sell my shares at that strike price.”

That’s why it’s called covered — your obligation to sell the shares is “covered” because you already own them.

Why people like covered calls

Covered calls can help you:

• Collect Premium while you hold a stock

• Lower your cost basis (the premium offsets your share cost)

• Set a disciplined exit price instead of getting emotional

If you’re the type who says, “I wouldn’t mind selling this at $55…”
A covered call is basically you saying that — and getting paid for it.

The two outcomes (and both can be fine)

Outcome #1: The stock stays below your strike.
Your call expires worthless. You keep your shares, and you keep the premium.

Outcome #2: The stock goes above your strike.
Your shares can get “called away.” You sell at the strike price, and you keep the premium.

That’s the tradeoff: you’re getting paid today, but you’re capping your upside.
If the stock absolutely rips higher, you don’t fully participate past the strike.

Covered call risk (don’t skip this)

A covered call does not protect you from a big drop.

If your stock falls hard, the premium helps a little, but you still own the shares.
(That’s why stock selection matters, a lot.)

A quick example (simple numbers)

Say you own 100 shares of a stock at $50.

You sell a $55 call expiring in 30 days and collect $1.00 in premium.
That’s $100 paid to you today.

• If the stock stays under $55 → you keep the $100 and your shares.

• If the stock goes above $55 → you sell at $55, and you keep the $100.

Either way, you got paid to set a sell price.

Pick ’Em Paul rule: Only sell covered calls on stocks you’d be okay holding… and okay selling.

Pick ’Em Paul rule #2: I prefer selling covered calls on green days. When the stock is up, you’re usually selling that call at a better price (and the premium is often a little richer).

Cash-Secured Puts (Getting Paid to Buy at Your Price)

If covered calls are “getting paid to sell,” cash-secured puts are the opposite:

You’re getting paid to buy.

A cash-secured put is when you sell a put on a stock you wouldn’t mind owning, and you keep enough cash in your account to pay for the shares if you get assigned.

That “cash-secured” part matters because:

• 1 contract = 100 shares

• So, if you sell a put (‘Sell to Open’) with a $45 strike, you’re agreeing you might buy 100 shares at $45

• That means you need $4,500 set aside (per contract)

Why people like cash-secured puts

Cash-secured puts can help you:

• Generate premium income while you wait

• Set a disciplined buy price instead of chasing the stock

• Potentially enter at a discount (because the premium reduces your effective cost)

If you’ve ever said, “I’d buy this stock… just not at today’s price,” this is your move.

The two outcomes (and both can be fine)

Outcome #1: The stock stays above your strike.
Your put expires worthless. You keep the premium, and you never buy the shares.

Outcome #2: The stock drops below your strike.
You can get assigned, meaning you buy 100 shares at the strike price.

And here’s the key:
Your effective buy price is usually lower than the strike because you keep the premium.

Example: if you sold the $45 put for $1.00, you collected $100.
If assigned, it’s like buying at $44 (strike $45 minus $1 premium).

The risk (and it’s a real risk)

The risk of cash secured puts is simple:

If the stock falls hard, you still may have to buy at the strike (unless you close the position early).
So don’t sell puts on junk you don’t want. You’re not “just collecting premium”, you’re agreeing to potentially become a shareholder.

Premium is not free money. It’s payment for taking on obligation. And if you sell enough cash-secured puts, eventually you’ll catch a trade that moves against you. That’s why stock selection and strike discipline matter.

A quick example (simple numbers)

Let’s say a stock is trading at $50, but you’d rather own it at $45.

You sell a $45 put expiring in 30 days and collect $1.25 in premium.
That’s $125 paid to you today.

• If the stock stays above $45 → you keep the $125 and move on.

• If the stock drops below $45 → you may buy 100 shares at $45, and you keep the $125.

Either way, you got paid to name your price.

Pick ’Em Paul rule #1: Only sell cash-secured puts on stocks you’d be comfortable owning for the next 6–12 months.

Pick ’Em Paul rule #2: If I’m planning to sell a cash-secured put anyway, I’d rather do it after a red day (or a small dip) rather than after a big green run because put premiums are often better when fear picks up and prices pull back.

Next up: now that you understand covered calls and cash-secured puts, we can connect the dots and talk about how people combine them into a repeatable approach, called the wheel strategy.

The Wheel Strategy (Connecting the Dots)

Now that you understand covered calls and cash-secured puts, you’re ready for my favorite option strategy, the wheel. They don’t call Pick ’Em Paul the rolling quad for nothing. (okay, nobody calls me that… yet).

The wheel strategy is just a repeatable way to rotate between those two plays.

No magic. No secret sauce.

It’s basically this:

1. Sell a cash-secured put on a stock you’d be happy to own

2. If you get assigned, you now own 100 shares

3. Sell covered calls on those shares to collect premium

4. If your shares get called away, you’re back to cash

5. Repeat back to cash-secured puts

That’s the “wheel.”

Starting point matters

There are two ways people begin:

• Starting with cash (no shares):
  You start by selling cash-secured puts until you either get assigned or decide to stop.

• Starting with shares already owned:
  You can skip straight to covered calls on what you already hold.

The wheel in one sentence

You’re either:

• Getting paid while waiting to buy, or

• Getting paid while waiting to sell

The three “rules” that keep it sane

Rule #1: Pick the right stocks.
If you wouldn’t feel okay owning it for months, don’t wheel it. You’re not just trading a ticker; you’re signing up to potentially own 100 shares.

Rule #2: Your strike prices are your buy/sell decisions.
A put strike is basically your “I’d buy it here” line.
A call strike is basically your “I’m okay selling it here” line.
If you don’t like those prices, don’t place the trade.

Rule #3: Don’t confuse premium with performance.
Premium helps. It can lower your cost basis and add income. But it doesn’t erase the fact that stocks can drop and drops hurt. And stock drops do happen!

Where people go wrong

• Selling puts on a stock they don’t understand just because the premium is higher.

• Choosing strikes too close to the current price because they want “more premium”

• Acting shocked when assignment happens (assignment is not a glitch, it’s why you’re getting paid that premium)

If you treat assignment like a disaster, this strategy might not be for you.
If you treat assignment like the plan, it makes a lot more sense.

Next up: how to pick strikes, expirations, and stocks so you’re not just spinning the wheel, you’re doing it with intention.

Picking Your Strike + Expiration (So You’re Not Just Clicking Buttons)

This is where beginners either run the wheel calmly… or turn it into chaos.

Because once you understand what a put or call is, the next question is:

“Okay… which strike and which expiration do I pick?”

Here’s the Pick ’Em Paul way to think about it.

Step 1: Start with the price you’d actually accept

Forget the option chain for a second.

• Cash-secured put: At what price would I be genuinely happy buying 100 shares?

• Covered call: At what price would I be okay selling my 100 shares?

If you don’t like the price, don’t place the trade. Premium isn’t a valid reason to hate your own strike.

Step 2: Give yourself enough room

Newer traders love picking strikes right next to the current stock price because it pays more.

That also increases the chance you get assigned (puts) or called away (calls) fast, sometimes before you’ve even gotten comfortable.

A simple beginner-friendly approach:

• Pick strikes that are out-of-the-money (not right on top of the stock price)

• Let the stock breathe a little

You’re trying to run a repeatable process, not win one spin.

Step 3: Keep expirations simple (at first)

Short expirations move fast and can get emotional.

For most beginners, a clean starting range is:

• ~30–45 days out (enough time to work, not so long it drags forever)

Then you can close early if you’ve already captured most of the premium.

Step 4: Premium is tied to movement

You’ll notice premiums rise when the stock is moving more (or the market is stressed). That’s normal, just remember the higher premium usually means higher “this thing could move against me” risk.

Next up: the checklist I use before I sell any put or call — so my trades are planned, not impulsive.

The Pick ’Em Paul Checklist (Before You Sell Any Put or Call)

This is the part that keeps you out of trouble.

Because selling options is simple… until you do it on the wrong stock, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason.

Before I sell a cash-secured put or a covered call, I run this quick checklist:

✅ 1) Do I actually want this stock?

• If assignment happened today, would I be okay owning 100 shares?

• If the answer is “meh” or “no,” I’m out.

✅ 2) Do I understand what the company does?

• If I can’t explain the business in one sentence, I probably shouldn’t be trading options on it.

✅ 3) Is the stock liquid enough?

• Tight bid/ask spreads on the option chain

• Decent volume/open interest
  If it trades like a ghost town, you’ll pay for it in bad fills.

✅ 4) Where am I in the chart?

Not predicting the future — just avoiding bad spots.

• Selling puts after a big run-up? Risky.

• Selling calls after a big dump? Also risky.
  I’d rather sell into normal moves, not extremes.

✅ 5) Earnings check (big one for beginners)

If earnings are coming up during the life of my option, I usually pass as a beginner.

Why? Because earnings can gap a stock right through your strike overnight.
Premium is often higher going into earnings… and that’s not a gift. That’s risk being priced in.

✅ 6) Am I okay with my strike price?

This is non-negotiable.

• Put strike = “I’m willing to buy here.”

• Call strike = “I’m willing to sell here.”

If I’m not comfortable with that price, I don’t place the trade.

✅ 7) Do I have a plan if it moves against me?

Before I click anything, I know what I’ll do if:

• The stock drops and my put goes in-the-money

• The stock runs and my covered call gets threatened

Maybe I accept assignment. Maybe I roll. Maybe I close early.
But I’m not improvising with real money.

✅ 8) Am I trading for premium… or for a process?

The goal isn’t to squeeze every last dollar out of one trade.
The goal is a repeatable approach you can run without panicking.

If I’m forcing a trade because I’m bored, chasing losses, or trying to “make something happen”… I walk away.

Next up: a beginner game plan, the easiest way to start so you don’t blow up your account with your first trade.

Beginner Game Plan + Closing (Your First Real Steps)

If you take nothing else from this post, take this:

Start small, stay boring, and build reps.

Here’s a simple beginner game plan that doesn’t require a finance degree, or 12 open tabs on those 3 monitors.

Step 1: Pick 1–2 stocks you’d be happy owning

Not “hot” stocks. Not random tickers you saw on X (And certainly not because it’s a stock you saw on Pick ‘Em Paul’s substack). Pick names you actually understand and wouldn’t mind holding for a while if you get assigned.

Step 2: Paper trade (or go tiny) for 2–4 cycles

Your first goal isn’t to “make money.” It’s to learn the mechanics:

• What it feels like when price moves against you

• How premiums change

• What assignment looks like in your account

If you can’t paper trade, fine. Just keep size small enough that you can sleep.

Step 3: Start with cash-secured puts

Sell one cash-secured put at a strike you’d truly buy an underlying stock at.
If it expires worthless, great — you got paid to wait.
If you get assigned, that’s not failure — that’s the plan.

Step 4: If assigned, move to covered calls

Once you own 100 shares, sell a covered call at a strike you’d be okay selling at.
Repeat until your shares get called away… or until you decide you want to keep holding.

Step 5: Keep a simple tracking note

Nothing fancy. Just track:

• Ticker

• Strike / expiration

• Premium collected

• What happened (expired, assigned, called away)

Most people don’t have a strategy problem — they have a “no process” problem.

Options don’t have to be complicated. But they do require discipline.

This is JPM Picks — we’re here for repeatable plays, not lottery tickets.

If you’d like, let me know:

• what broker you use, and

• one or two stocks you’re considering for your first covered call or cash-secured put

…and I’ll help you pressure-test the choice and build your first setup.

Sports betting is one of the fastest ways to make a random Tuesday night game feel like a playoff atmosphere… but it’s also one of the fastest ways to get humbled if you jump in without a basic playbook.

This guide is built for beginners. By the end, you’ll know what the most common bet types mean, how odds work, how to avoid the classic mistakes, and how to pick where you should place your bets.

Quick note: Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money (that means for entertainment only). I am not offering financial advice or gambling advice. Always bet responsibly, keep it fun, and never risk money you can’t afford to lose.

What you’ll walk away with:

• The only betting terms you need to start

• How to read odds (-110, +250, etc.) without getting lost

• The 4–5 bet types you’ll see everywhere

• How to choose a sportsbook (and what to avoid)

• A beginner game plan that keeps you alive long enough to learn

The 60-Second Betting Primer

Before we talk spreads, parlays, and all the shiny stuff, here’s the simple truth:

Sports betting is just pricing probability. You’re not just picking winners, you’re picking numbers (odds, spreads, totals) and deciding whether they’re worth the risk.

Now let’s make sure you’re betting in the right place, the right way, and with the right expectations.

First question: Can you even place a bet where you live—and what counts as “betting” now that prediction markets exist?

Legality Basics: Where You Can Bet (and What “Counts”)

Sports betting rules vary by state and country, and they can change. So, the goal here isn’t a law lecture (I’m no lawyer, I’m just a guy on the internet.) It’s a common-sense way to make sure you’re betting legally, safely, and on the right kind of platform.

Here’s a quick framework:

1. Know your local rules (because what’s allowed in one place may not be allowed in another)

2. Use legitimate platforms that verify identity and location

3. Understand the difference between sportsbooks and prediction markets

How to verify in two minutes (without guessing):

• Check your state’s official gaming/regulatory site (or official state resources).

• Confirm the platform’s availability list and terms (most have a “Where we operate” page).

• Remember: many legal platforms use geolocation + identity verification. You may be able to download an app, but you can’t place a wager unless the service is available and you’re eligible where you are.

One more note on “what counts”:

• A sportsbook is traditional sports wagering (spreads, moneylines, totals, props).

• A prediction market is typically framed as buying/selling outcome contracts. Some people treat these like sports betting alternatives, but availability and rules can vary, so always check eligibility and local guidelines before using them.

Choosing Where to Bet: Sportsbooks vs. Prediction Markets

There are two buckets beginners run into today:

• Sportsbooks (traditional): You place a wager using odds set by the book (spread, moneyline, totals, props). If you’re in a legal market, licensed sportsbooks will typically use identity + location checks before allowing you to bet.

• Prediction markets (newer): You’re usually buying/selling outcome contracts rather than placing a traditional sportsbook bet. Some people treat these as an alternative when sportsbooks aren’t available, but availability and rules can vary, and the experience can feel more like trading than betting.

Keep it simple: whichever route you use, prioritize transparency, safety, and clear rules, especially around payouts, fees, and withdrawals.

Now that you know where bets happen, let’s translate what you’re seeing on the screen starting with the three core bet types you’ll see everywhere.

The Big Three Bet Types You’ll See Everywhere

If you understand these, you can understand about 80% of sports betting:

• Point Spread

• Moneyline

• Totals (Over/Under)

You’ll see other stuff (props, parlays, futures), but these three are the foundation and they show up on almost every game you’ll ever bet.

Below are quick examples of what each one looks like on a sportsbook screen.

The Point Spread

The above Example means to win your bet on the Packers; they must win by 8 or more points. If you bet on the Bears; to win your bet, they can lose by 7 or less points (or win the game outright).

The Moneyline

The Money line is picking the winner of the game with different odds depending on who the sportsbook deems to be the favorite (explained in the next section).

The Total

Betting the total is one of the easiest and basic bets (and one of my favorites). In this example if you bet Over 45.5, you think more that 45 points will be scored in the game. If you bet under you think less than 45 points will be scored in the game.

Now that you know what you’re betting on, the next step is to understand the price of the bet (those numbers like -110, +250 and -300).

Odds in Plain English (American + Fractional)
Odds are just the price of a bet.

• Negative odds (like -110): how much you need to risk to win $100

• Positive odds (like +250): how much you win if you risk $100

Quick example: at -110, you risk $11 to win $10 (or $110 to win $100). At +250, you risk $10 to win $25 (plus your original bet back).

Once you understand that, you can calculate payouts for any wager size—$5, $10, $50 without guessing.

Now we get to the part that determines whether you survive long-term: not your picks, your bankroll rules.

Bankroll Rules for Beginners (The Part Nobody Wants to Read)

You can be “right” a lot and still go broke if your bet sizing is reckless. Bankroll management isn’t flashy, but it’s the difference between learning the game and donating to it.

Why you need to win more than 50% (the vig)

Most spreads and totals are priced around -110 on both sides. That means you’re risking $11 to win $10 (or $110 to win $100). That extra “fee” is the sportsbook’s edge. This is called the vig (or “juice.” It’s not as tasty as orange juice, trust me).

Because of the vig, you don’t break even by winning half your bets. At -110, you generally need to win about 52.4% just to break even over time.

The non-negotiables

• Set a betting budget. This is entertainment money. Once it’s gone, you’re done until the next time you choose to reload.

• Use a simple bet sizing rule. Beginners should keep it boring: flat bets (same amount each time) or a small percentage of bankroll (no more than 5% on one bet).

• Track everything. Date, bet type, odds, stake, result. If you don’t track it, you’re guessing.

• Never chase losses. Chasing turns one bad night into a bankroll-ending week. (To be transparent, I am terrible at this)

With bankroll rules in place, the rest becomes simple. Make small, informed bets, and let your results (not your emotions) guide your next move.

Research Without Overthinking It

You don’t need to build a supercomputer with 1000s of data models to be a successful sports bettor. You just need a repeatable process so you’re not betting off vibes.

Start with this checklist:

• Injuries + availability: who’s in, who’s out, who’s limited

• Line movement: did the number move—and why?

• Matchups: style vs style (strength vs weakness)

• Situational spots: travel, rest, back-to-backs, motivation

• Avoid headline bias: don’t overreact to the last game you watched

The goal isn’t perfection; it’s consistency. If you do the same basic homework every time, your picks get sharper and your mistakes get easier to spot.

Before we wrap, there’s one last beginner step that matters more than people think: choosing the right sportsbook (or platform) and not getting trapped by shiny promos and bad withdrawal rules.

Sportsbook Checklist (Promos, Payouts, Trust, and User Experience)

This is your “don’t get burned” list. Before you deposit money anywhere, run through this:

• Reputation + licensing: Stick with well-known, regulated operators where you live.

• Withdrawals + deposit methods: Test a small deposit first, and make sure withdrawals are straightforward (and not slow or confusing).

• Promo fine print: The headline bonus is never the whole story. Read the wagering requirements and restrictions.

• Odds quality: Even small differences matter over time. If you bet a lot, better pricing adds up.

• Customer service: If something goes wrong, you want fast support (live chat is a good sign).

• Mobile usability: If the app is clunky, you’ll make mistakes, especially live or rushed bets.

Quick tip: Before committing, place one small bet and do a small withdrawal later. That “test run” tells you more than any ad.

At this point you know enough to place your first bet the right way. Let’s finish with a simple beginner game plan and a couple tools to stay organized.

Your Beginner Game Plan (Do This, Not That)

If you do nothing else, do this for your first 30 days. The goal isn’t to “get hot.” The goal is to build habits that keep you in the game.

• Start with straight bets only. No parlays, no gimmicks, just one bet, one outcome.

• Keep stakes small. You’re buying reps and learning, not trying to force income.

• Track every wager. Date, bet, odds, stake, result. Patterns show up fast when you write them down.

• Focus on learning, not “making it back.” Chasing turns one loss into five bad decisions.

• Earn complexity. Consistency first. Fancy stuff later.

If you want the next level: live betting, hedging, arbitrage, parlays/props/teasers, and futures (including fractional odds) deserve their own post, so beginners don’t skip the fundamentals.

If you found this article helpful, consider subscribing so you don’t miss Sports Betting 201, and follow along for more JPM Picks content.

Welcome — I’m Pick ’Em Paul. This is JPM Picks.

I write about sports betting and stock options with the same focus:

probability, risk, and not doing dumb stuff just because it’s a Tuesday.

If you’ve ever looked at a point spread and thought “that number is lying,”
or looked at an options chain and thought “why does this feel like a sportsbook?”
…yeah. Same.

The one promise

JPM Picks will help you think better about risk.
Not by pretending I can predict the future — but by building a repeatable process you can use in both lanes:

• sports betting (odds, edges, bankroll)

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What you’ll find here

1) Sports — analysis, futures, and the “odds are odds” lens”

I’m not here for “LOCK OF THE CENTURY.”

I’m here for:

• what the numbers are actually saying (including odds when they matter)

• where value or leverage might be hiding

• how to manage risk so one bad week doesn’t nuke the season

• and how I think through big questions like “Can anyone dethrone the Dodgers?”

Sometimes I’m right, more times I learn the hard way. Either way, you get the thinking.

2) Options — without the guru nonsense

Options can be smart. Options can also be a casino with extra steps.

Most of what I write lives in the practical zone:

• cash-secured puts

• covered calls

• and other strategies built for discipline, not dopamine

I like income. I like rules. I really like not waking up to a surprise margin problem.

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Let’s clear the air:

• not a pay-for-picks newsletter

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No locks. No secret sauce. No crystal ball.

How it’s organized

Two lanes. Same mindset.

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Previews, matchups, storylines, futures, odds, market movement — and the numbers behind the noise.

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Options concepts, strategy breakdowns, and risk-first setups.

Read one lane or both — whatever fits your brain.

What You’ll get from JPM Picks

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Some weeks lean sports. Some lean options. The thread is always: probability + discipline.

JPM = Just Paper Money (read this once)

This is education + entertainment.
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Use your own judgment. Manage your own risk.

Where to start

If you’re new, start here:

• Sports Betting 101 (odds, bankroll, the basics people skip)

• Options 101 (covered calls + cash-secured puts)

Those will make everything else here click faster.

Last thing

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Hit reply. Tell me what you're working on, what you trade, what sport you follow, or what you're trying to figure out. Let's build this together.

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