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- [00:00]
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Daniel Cormier
This is Daniel Cormier from the Daniel Cormier Show. This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. Power doesn't wait in the octagon or outside of it. You either make the move or you miss the moment. That's why you need a network that's just as powerful as you are. With Total Wireless, you get unlimited 5G data keeping you in the action from the walkouts to the knockouts. Now that's a total power move. Make your total power move today. Visit totalwireless.com or stop by your neighborhood Total Wireless store. Additional terms apply. See totalwireless.com for details.
- [01:10]
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- [02:27]
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- [02:32]
Chad Millman
Welcome to Sharper Square presented by Hard Rock Bat. We are part of the Volume Podcast Network. This is the betting show that makes the squares sharper makes the wise guys pay attention. I am Chad Millman. I am joined as always by my co host, my companion, my compadre, my BFF Professional Better Simon Hunter. Today we are back with part two of our episode covering the 2026 NFL regular season Schedule release Once again, we're joined by special guest Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis. Without further ado, let's dive right back in. Let's think about it from a betting point of view. Should we be using the schedule and how the schedule makers of the NFL are thinking about it as a better hint. KPI, if you want to get corporate for it, indicator of the teams that could be good and how should that impact our betting habits in whatever capacity. Warren, you go first.
- [03:34]
Warren Sharp
Yeah, they've got great data and they're smart people that are working within the league. But I also think that we should be looking at our own data, our own analysis, breaking down everything from what strength of schedule you're going to play, the rest edges in addition to luck factors that occurred last year to help get you to the place that you were. And so it's definitely something that you're going to factor in. I mean when the league, what I'm pulling up here, Rams have the most primetime games. Bills, Packers, Chiefs and Seahawks are next at 6. You look, you look at those teams, I mean you're basically talking about favorites in the NFC and AFC for the super bowl right now. So with the Bills and the Chiefs being right up there as the most games for any teams in the afc, I definitely think that they are onto something about putting those best teams in the best position.
- [04:29]
Chad Millman
For sure, they are the bestest Mencius teams. Simon, what do I want to take from this? How do I want to bet the schedule? I like that idea. We're betting the schedule. Have you ever done this before? Have you ever taken the schedule into consideration? When you're thinking about season long team over unders 100%.
- [04:56]
Simon Hunter
Like Warren said, we know this in January. So that's, I'm doing that work during the season because it's like why not just do this on now? They the books put these lines up so quick, right? As soon as super bowl ends, you have some books that put up win totals and that's, you know, that's where you want to attack. But you know, I, I don't, like I said, I don't take much from the league. They just, they put, they don't even put teams names on this board anymore and they make the schedule. It's really the quarterback names. That's all they're doing. Like that's so true. Look at it. It's very simple what they're doing with this league right now. And that's what I love. It's like they should be. I keep saying people don't believe this is the golden age of quarterback.
- [05:33]
Daniel Cormier
This is.
- [05:34]
Simon Hunter
We're very spoiled right now between the veteran talent and the young talent. And when I look at the schedule and the way it plays out, me and you, Chad, we attack what they're overlooking, right? We were all over the Bengals, which they were in a ton of primetime games last year. We were all over them. Having a bad year last year, like that was one of our favorite bets attacking that team because we just couldn't go over how horrible the organization did, you know, making that defense. They don't look at that then if all they're thinking, we have Joe Burrow, a high flying offense, let's get them into five to six prime time games. And that's what they did last year. And you know, same goes for a lot of these teams. So you know, it's, it's not, it's not like the league cares right about those type of things. They're just all about the revenue. And a team I would love to hear Warren talk more about would be the Chargers. That's a team I think we're going to get a huge advantage on attacking their under this season. And I, I'll say what I want to do with their where they're over under after Warren breaks it down. But that was a team right away where I knew the schedule they're going to have. I knew they lost Minter, which I don't think we've talked about how big of a deal that is. It's a reason I love what the Ravens prospects are compared to the Chargers prospects. And seeing Warren break this down was really interesting about their schedule of the season.
- [06:47]
Warren Sharp
Yeah, if we want to dive right in. I mean the Chargers play the worst NFL schedule that you can imagine that I have seen in my time of analyzing the schedule. At least as it relates to rest. They play a negative 24 day net rest differential. That is the largest since 2013. That is the number two largest since 2000. That is the number four largest since 1990, which is as far back as my data goes. The Chargers keep getting screwed by the league in this regard. I don't quite understand why. But think about this. The last seven seasons that they've played, only one time did they have a season where they had a rest advantage, a net rest advantage in those seasons. Every other time they have not received it. But this is, you know, obviously beyond worse. This is the worst that they've had in franchise history. They play seven games with rest disadvantages, which is more than any other team in the league by two full games. The next, like the number two worst, number three, there's a bunch of teams tied at five, including the Philadelphia Eagles. Chargers are at seven games. Only one other time since 1998 has a team received at least seven games with a rest disadvantage. The Chargers play four teams coming off of a bye, three of which they will be definitely competing against in the AFC to win that conference. The Chiefs, the Texans and the Patriots throughout. The Raiders obviously, but the Chiefs, Texans, Patriots, those three teams, they also play two teams coming off a minibot. You want to know who those are? Teams that they're directly going to be competing against in the afc. The Bills and the Ravens. So I just listed off like five of the best teams in the AFC that are going to be competing with the Chargers have either three or seven days of rest advantage over the Chargers. But when those teams are going to kick off in 2026, this is just. They also play. If you look at their schedule, if you pull it up on the screen, they have the most interesting schedule in regards to the first two weeks are just jokes. They play the Cardinals and the Raiders and then after that, from week three onward, they play the number two most difficult schedule in the NFL and are dealing with all these rest disadvantages with littered across their schedule. So, you know, and also another note is that those two games that they play against the Cardinals and the Raiders, those are home games, which means down the stretch they're going to be playing a little bit more on the road once they're playing these other teams with the rest disadvantages. So a challenging, challenging schedule for the Chargers, who obviously got Mike McDaniel, are trying to improve the run game, give Justin Herbert a little bit of balance, improve along the offensive line. But this is a difficult situation for them to be dealing with and Justin Herbert does have a tendency to get beaten up a little bit throughout the course of the season. And what has Justin Herbert been doing more since Jim Harbaugh became his coach? Keep in mind back, you know, Simon and Chad are both old enough like I am to remember Jim Harbaugh when he used to play football in the NFL. This dude would take off and run also a lot when he played quarterback for the Colts. He encourages Justin Herbert to do that as well and could potentially lead to some other injuries being sustained along the way. So it's going to be a challenge for them to make it through this gauntlet of the number two most difficult rest summer, number one most difficult rest and number two most difficult schedule overall after week Two.
- [10:23]
Chad Millman
So the opposite side of this are the Cincinnati Bengals. A quarterback who is so fragile he can't finish a season even if he doesn't run that much and just wants to stay in the pocket. Yet they are only playing a team. Playing teams with that in 2025 had only four teams that are playing had a winning record. The Texans, the Jags, and then they play the Steelers twice. We don't know what the Steelers are going to be. We've talked about them on the show. We don't have that much enthusiasm for their prospects. The Bengals have in theory improve their defense if Joe Burrow was healthy. Is this a team all of a sudden that a rest advantage could help them in a way that we might not have seen otherwise?
- [11:17]
Warren Sharp
Well, they don't have a rest advantage, so it could have potentially helped them. I've got them at minus 4 in net rest this season, which is 23rd. I've got them playing a very easy schedule as you mentioned, Chad, the third easiest based upon strength, the schedule of opponen using win totals to calculate it. But from a rest perspective, they are bottom 10 in both my prep and rest rank as well as my net rest where they're at -4. They have two games with more rest than their opponent. Four games with less rest than their opponent. Only one game where their opponent has less than seven days to prepare for them. It's not a. It's nothing that they couldn't overcome. We're not talking about bottom five rest schedule here, so I would much rather kind of to your point, I think be playing that third easiest overall schedule and deal with the 10th worst rest than have the situation be reversed on its head. So I think they definitely could overcome this. It's interesting when you look around the AFC north, compare their strength of schedule to other teams. The Ravens have the sixth easiest schedule based upon opponent win loss. The Browns have the fourth easiest. The Steelers is a bit harder. They're 18th easiest. But the rest is somewhat similar among some of these other teams to what the Bengals are dealing with. So in terms of net rest, The Ravens are minus 3. The Browns are neutral. The Steelers are minus 6. I believe they ranked 24th. So I don't really see rest being a deciding factor in the AFC north this year.
- [12:58]
Chad Millman
Simon, I know we've ripped the Bengals forever, but do we feel like there's anything we've seen now that the schedule is fully out that makes us reconsider the Bengals?
- [13:11]
Simon Hunter
No, I'll project that for people. What we're gonna be talking about this summer, but I'm, I'm gonna be pretty, pretty big on the Ravens and sleeper team from that division will probably be the Browns. The Bengals, they're just, they could be good like they have. I think they've addressed a lot of weaknesses on the defense if Joe Brook could stay healthy. But I'm just laughing when Warren's talking just about how the league doing these schedules now, how random is where I said the Chargers and the Eagles are both facing four teams each coming off buys. There's 14 teams that don't play a single team coming off a buy this season. So it's just. There's no, like, when he's breaking it down. Like you're looking at all these stats, there's no rhyme or reason. Some of the stuff they're doing here, some teams are just really getting such disadvantages and like, yeah, you know, the Rams.
- [13:51]
Chad Millman
You know what, let me interrupt you for one second.
- [13:53]
Simon Hunter
Yeah.
- [13:54]
Chad Millman
Because I actually feel like there is rhyme and reason. And the rhyme and reason is biggest games, biggest teams, most prime time situations and everything else goes to shit. So it used to be these would be balanced out for health reasons or competition reasons. Now it's just about what's the best game we can put on television at any particular time with the highest profile people. And that's how that impacts the opportunity to play against teams coming off a buy. Because some teams might not, might never factor into that equation in terms of being on prime time. And some teams are only going to factor in the equation in being prime time. It goes back to what we talked about at the beginning. Like, it's so clear what the league is doing to the detriment, potentially health wise, of everything else. Not to interrupt.
- [14:43]
Warren Sharp
Well, I think you guys are both. I think you guys are both right in that Simon is saying that just. It's hard to know from a variance perspective. Certain teams are getting massively screwed here from a rest perspective, while other teams don't really seem to be impacted. And Chad, you're saying it's more. It's more the teams that potentially are getting screwed that the league wants to put in all these prime positions. But overall, if you look at like the league overall, I got this graphic. I don't know if it'll show up well on the camera here, but. But this is 2025. This is like the worst rest and this is the best rest. This is how narrow that chart is. Look how much wider it becomes in 2026 because these teams are getting screwed so much more that it's extending this and the league is just batting a blind eye at that and saying, well, rest doesn't matter. And so they're telling the owners that rest doesn't matter. That's their official edict. And so the owners are saying, I guess rest doesn't matter. If you're making me 10 million more per season because you're putting all these games in primetime, I'll agree with you, rest doesn't matter. Keep doing your thing. Roger Goodell, to your point, Chad earlier, about Goodell just acting as if he has all the power in the world to do things. He continues to make more money for the league. They're selling these games at one off and they are going to keep making money. And so what owner is going to try to rock the boat and say, oh, this is unfair. Too much rest. The other 31 owners will be like, who cares? We're making a ton of money doing it like this, so let's just keep doing it. And that's why we really have seen 2021. 2022 weren't so bad. 2023, it started to get a lot worse. 2024 was really bad. That was the, like, it was egregious. Last year it was about the same as 2024. It wasn't getting worse. And then this year they're stepping it up. Now what they're doing is they're helping a little bit in the player health and safety. Like, they've removed three games in 10 days. I remember two years ago this was a huge deal because they had Christmas on Wednesday, and so they reintroduced playing three games in 10 days, which is something they hadn't done like the prior seven or so years. They put it in there for those teams on Christmas, but then they also said, hey, now that we're introducing this, let's stick some other teams to play three games in 10 days. They only did that for one team last year. It was the Dallas Cowboys, and now they're doing it for no teams this year. So they've reduced that. They've reduced the number of negated bye weeks to give teams that actually have a buy a little bit of an advantage because they had been overlapping too many of the bye weeks and basically ruling out any advantages that you were getting. There only is one team this year that has to play four games in 17 days. That's the Buffalo Bills. But that number has fallen from what it was previously. So they're making some minor concessions along the way, but at the same time, then they're just going crazy with These rest disadvantages, and I've got some numbers to back that up. The net rest Delta from the best team and the worst team here on this graphic from the best team and the worst team is 39 days of Delta, which is the largest for any NFL season since 2000. There will be 110 games played this year where one team has a rest advantage over their opponent that is 40% of the schedule, 40% of the games this year, somebody will have a rest advantage that is the number one most of any season in NFL history. And then if you say, well, one game, two game doesn't really matter, fine, three games or more. There are 69 games that are being played this year where a team has at least three games of a rest advantage that is the most of any season in NFL history as well. So these are all things that you could, if you don't believe that rest matters, you could completely say, this is all fine, we don't care. But if I wasn't talking about this, there aren't that many other people who would kind of be bringing this stuff to light. And the way that I got into schedule analysis in the first place was before I even did the first year, which was 2021, back in 2017, 18, 19 timeframe, through some of my connections, there was two owners that reached out to me through an intermediary and wanted me to look at certain issues with their team's historical schedule. One guy, I'm not going to go into details, but one guy was upset with the number of road primetime games that they were having to play on short weeks rather than hosting them at their own stadium. He wanted to make that money of hosting them. He felt that that was unfair. And another guy, there was another team that they were having to play where that team schedule was never getting forced into some difficult spots. And he didn't think it was fair that that team didn't have to deal with any of those difficult spots. I've talked to some general managers as well as coaches about this. Once I started like looking at those specific things, like, hey, there is something here. Hey, there is something there. And you can go back maybe to my website back in the late, you know, 20, 18, 17 time period where I was writing some articles about these types of things, that's when it spiral like, hey, there's more to this schedule that people should be aware of. There's like more issues potentially with the rest that people should be aware of. And I started digging into this a little bit more. And so it's Just, it's very convenient for the league to say none of this matters at all. But I would just throw this to you guys. Chad, you've been covering sports betting for decades. Simon, you've been betting on these games at a high level for decades as well. Let's pretend you've got the super bowl first. I'll give you two examples. Okay, first example is this. Before every game this year, I could tell you, you can have and you can, you can pick. You either get two days of arrest advantage or you get two days of arrest deficit against every one of your opponents. Is anybody actually going to pick two days of a rest deficit? Everybody is going to say two days of a rest advantage. That is what I want. Even if I don't believe that rest matters. A ton of you just never know. Like, your opponent could be injured, a guy could get a concussion. Well, if we're playing on Thursday and the other team's on a short week, that guy's not playing in that game. But if it was a Sunday, maybe he could come back. Sprained ankle, injured hamstring. Can he come back in time? We're not sure. The shorter that rest is or the bigger advantage your team has over the opponent, the more likely you can get a full healthy roster for that particular game. The other thing is like, let's pretend we changed the way that we're doing the super bowl. Instead of two weeks off for both teams, let's say that the NFC was going to play their conference championship 10 days before the Super Bowl. The AFC was going to play their conference championship five days before the Super Bowl. Do you not agree that the odds makers would take that rest advantage into consideration for the Super Bowl? They would give the NFC some sort of a benefit for not playing as short of a rest as the nfc, I agree, would say that everybody would agree to that. And yet the NFL says rest doesn't matter at all. And I just patently, the numbers we've discussed clearly show that rest does matter. You could just throw out all the numbers, though, and just look at logically. Would you rather have two days extra rest or not? I think everybody would logically. And the last thing I gotta throw in here because this is a key metric that I think is pretty interesting. I call it a one factor handicap, where all you're doing is you're changing one factor and it flips the handicap. Think about this over the last decade, Talking about over 500 games where a team plays on the road after week six, throughout the first six weeks, after week Six. When rest is more of a factor, all you're doing is you're playing on the road. I am going to flip from whether you have more rest or less rest than six days. The standard is six days. Do you have more rest? You're playing on the road. If you have more rest, you are 192 and 168. That's 53.3%, which is a positive 1.8% ROI. If you're playing with less than six days of rest, you are 113 and 126. That's 47.9% ATS. That's a negative 8.6% ROI. All I'm doing is flipping from whether you have more rest than standard or less rest than standard, and we're flipping the ROI by about 10%. So to me, that's enough to say rest does factor in here. This is the NFL as Simon knows. It's going to be impossible to say exactly how much rest matters. We don't like, does it matter? Increase your win rate by X or Y. Like there's so many factors at play here with the NFL. But to say that rest doesn't matter at all, I think is is the agenda the NFL is pushing. And I just staunchly disagree with that.
- [23:28]
Chad Millman
I would say they're not pushing that rest doesn't matter. I would say they're pushing rest matters less than the cash we can make from putting good games and good spots to make more money publicly.
- [23:40]
Warren Sharp
You're probably right. I mean, I've heard them say that they don't believe rest is a factor. They've looked at all the different permutations. They do not. This is what they're saying this year in the off season. But. But I think at the end of the day, you are 100% right that it's more beneficial for them to say something like that in order to get the cash than it would be to factor in rest and try to make a more balanced schedule. And, you know, the evil machine making the money.
- [24:08]
Chad Millman
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- [25:49]
Daniel Cormier
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- [26:44]
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- [27:48]
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- [28:49]
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- [29:34]
Simon Hunter
we're going to talk about when we do over unders. But I've already basically put aside five figures to in season bet the Chargers win total. Like you can literally let them win week one, week two against a, you know, Cardinals and the Raiders opponents. And that's going to be a huge advantage to take because even if it's. You can take it now, right? I think it is ten and a half. It's a big deal if he moves half a game to 11, like that's to me the exact position I want to be in because I could see Herbert getting to 10 wins because he's that talented. But this is a team that already gets an injury bug and now they're at a huge rest disadvantage because of what a little bit of what Warren's talking about here, which is I think NFL is showing their hand a little bit of if you don't have a great home field advantage, you don't have a die hard home field. Right. You're one of these teams that's moved to a different new stadium over the last couple years, but you have a talented quarterback. You can, you can be their guinea pig. They'll throw you in prime time games, they'll put you in awful spots because they don't care. Like they're just, they want to get the viewership and they're not going to worry about your team because you don't really have a fan base complaining to this front office. So I thought it was really interesting when you see what's going on with the Rams and the Chargers, two teams that, you know, moved to la. Now it's been five, six years and they just have not really had a foothold. And you know that there's pictures even floating around every year of the 49ers taking over that stadium. When they play against the Rams and the Raiders taking over that stadium, they play against the Chargers. I think the NFL really does pay attention to those type of things.
- [30:58]
Chad Millman
You know, you mentioned the Niners last year. You both made the point. The Niners have great first string talent and they've got a great coach in Kyle Shanahan. But their season was going to be dependent upon their depth. And that's essentially what happened. And how they drafted in 2025. A lot of questions about how they drafted in 2026. You both have talked about that. Warren. I'm bringing this up as an excuse for you to harp on John lynch, the 49ers GM, because you've been very critical, as has Simon, of the job he's done drafting in San Francisco. Explain yourself.
- [31:40]
Warren Sharp
Well, it's frustrating because if you want to go off the board so much because you think your board is better, which we've. It's pretty much been proven, especially in the first three to four rounds, that like, you're not going to be that much smarter than the consensus board to continuously go off the board like he's doing. But even if you felt that way, you could trade down some of these picks, get more assets and still get the guy that you're looking to get. And John lynch just simply doesn't understand that concept. It continuously is reaching on these players. And if you want a little fun nugget blast from the past, go search for this exact show that we did last year on almost this exact date one year ago. You will find us talking about the same exact story with the 49ers. And I literally said something along the lines of this is a team that might not reach their ceiling because they're top heavy with who they are paying. And I was okay with them paying Purdy like they did, but they don't have that bottom part of the roster because they haven't drafted well, that's going to need to fill out games, especially if the team gets injured for them to get to where they want to get to, which is obviously win a Super Bowl. They're very talented and Kyle Shanahan is a really good coach and he overcompensates for some of the other deficiencies that the team has from a roster perspective. They were able to win games even with Mac Jones playing quarterback a little bit. Like this is a team that could fill in some of the pieces. But Christian McCaffrey, obviously vital to them. George Kittle, obviously vital to them. Trent Williams, obviously vital to them. All these guys are getting paid and they're getting up there in age and they just don't have that depth because they've drafted so poorly the last several years to really compete in, especially if injuries hit. They are playing the eighth easiest schedule of any team this year, so they'll probably win some games. But this is a team. You know, I really do like Kyle Shanahan as a schemer, as a play caller. I know people have issues with him from, you know, choking in the big games or whatnot, but he's a really good coach, one of the best that we have in the NFL. It's frustrating that he sometimes falls in love with these mid round running backs that he thinks he has to have on the team. And it's also frustrating that John lynch just goes way off the board and doesn't understand value and as a result I think is limiting the ceiling of where this team could go.
- [34:03]
Simon Hunter
Simon, we talk all the time about these organizations with just an owner that becomes buddy buddy with these GMs and it's, you know, it's what happens. It feels like the Colts and Ballard, it's just how do these guys keep these jobs? And it's, it's such a job that should have a higher rate of turnover because it is so hard. It's, you're attached to the quarterback. End of the day. These guys choose these quarterbacks and I think lynch got away with one obviously because that Trey Lance, anyone? Yeah, that gm. But the Purdy saved the Purdy pick, saved it. So it's like it's a hard bouncing act if you're the owner. It's like I, I, I get that. It's like a Hall of Fame player, he's got into some Super Bowls, I mean he's made some right moves along the way. But this, the drafts, the holes that we keep talking about, it's, it's noticeable where it's like they had a huge window, they had so much talent. Salah coming back, being the defensive corner. Like they had a great coaching. It just he messed up. Like he did not draft well. Kept reaching on players these last two, three years and it's just the NFL, it's like four year window. If you mess up on two, three years of drafting, you need to really hit big on players. And they have obviously in free agency as well. But yeah, to me, lynch just in that division. You could just, I feel like we're all on the same page. It just feels like they're the third team. Like it's just the Rams right now, the Seattle, just those front offices. They're just, they're just better. I mean they have the rings to show out. They're just simply better. And I, I just don't think John lynch is the answer long term. It's just the owner needs to step up and make a move. It's just they're going to keep spinning their tires and I don't think they're ever going to get over that hill. The one that they keep falling by. What Warren talked about. They just, they're missing on certain players that would get them over the hump. They just can't do it.
- [35:46]
Warren Sharp
You know, the Brock Purdy thing. Just real quick, Brock Purdy after that draft, he's obviously Mr. Irrelevant, the last player drafted. A lot of times GMs let other guys make those picks for the team who they feel really strongly about. John lynch came out after the draft and said Brock Purdy was Brian Greasy, the quarterback coach and Slowik. Not Bobby Slowik, but his brother who was a scout for the 49ers. That Brock Purdy pick was not even John Lynch. It was Greasy and Slowik.
- [36:17]
Chad Millman
So that is a great anecdote. We started last year in 2025 harping on the Niners. We end our two episodes in 2026 harping on the Niners. That was our show, fellas. This has been Sharper Square part of the Volume Podcast Network. Our thanks to Warren Sharp for joining us as always to cover the 2026 NFL schedule. Release, watch or listen on YouTube at Sharper Square like this video. Subscribe to the channel. Download us from Spotify, Apple Pods, wherever you get your pods Rate Review. Subscribe. Leave us five stars. Say whatever you want. Feedback is a gift. Until next time. Love you.
- [36:59]
Daniel Cormier
Hello. You play to win the game. You don't play to just play it foreign. This is Daniel Cormier from the Daniel Cormier Show. This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. Power doesn't wait in the octagon or outside of it. You either make the move or you miss the moment. That's why you need a network that's just as powerful as you are. With Total Wireless, you get unlimited 5G data keeping you in the action from the walkouts to the knockouts. Now that's a total power move. Make your total power move today. Visit totalwireless.com or stop by your neighborhood Total Wireless Store. Additional terms apply. See totalwireless.com for details.
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Warren Sharp
What?
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Just make sure we protect each other
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