Blue Chips & Penny Stocks: Austin Hooper & the Browns, plus UFC 266
What’s up my beautiful PredictionStrike family, and welcome to another edition of Blue Chips and Penny stocks! I am writing this t-minus 30 minutes before kickoff of the TNF game, and I am anxious to see how Davis Mills performs (editor note: meh). I may or may not have bought shares before the game, and why not? He is super cheap, crazy low projections, and potentially high upside (editor note: again, meh). That is a penny stock if I have ever heard one (final editor note: we’ll live with -3%). You might have missed it last week, but my UFC stock recommendation, Raquel Pennington won in a unanimous decision last Saturday night! No peeking, but I have an in-depth stock analysis of another fighter in action tomorrow night below for UFC 266.
For this week's NFL stock breakdown, I am limiting myself to one stock, so I can give you in depth coverage on both the UFC fighter and my NFL baller. I know I give you a couple sentences each week on a couple guys, but I have so much conviction in this week's stock, I want to give him center stage. Hopefully we can all make big profits on him together. I will be back on Monday with an Insider Trading article for the much-anticipated divisional contest between the Eagles and Cowboys. Should be a very good game. I also will be on Twitter, @ChipsStocks giving out some last minute stock tips on Sunday afternoon. If you haven’t followed yet, I hope you do so before 1:00 PM EST Sunday. We have a lot to get into, so let’s get after it.
Sunday September 26th, 2021 at 1:00 PM, the Cleveland Browns will take the field against the Chicago Bears. All the buzz surrounding this game has to do with Justin Fields (0%, $6.53/share). We all know by now that Andy Dalton (-11%, $3.03/share) will not be playing Sunday afternoon due to a knee injury he succumbed to last weekend, which paves a way for the potential superstar quarterback, Justin Fields to take center stage. Now, I have mentioned multiple times, and multiple insiders featured on Insider Trading have said multiple times to buy shares of Justin Fields. If you have not done so yet, I strongly urge you to consider doing so before Sunday.
Saying all that, I want to direct your attention to the other sideline, where the 1-1 Cleveland Browns are equally noteworthy. Like the Bears, the Browns are dealing with key injuries. Maybe you don’t know, but Baker Mayfield (-2%, $6.81/share) has been dealing with a shoulder injury since last week. He says its no big deal, but they took a MRI, so it's obviously bothering him. Luckily the MRI came back with no structural damage, but it's clearly sore enough that he hasn’t been participating fully in practice parts of this week. To add fuel to the injury fire, Jarvis Landry (-15%, $10.20/share) is injured. Let me repeat that, because you might not believe me. Jarvis Landry is injured, and has been placed on the IR. This coming Sunday will be the first time in Jarvis Landry’s entire career that he will miss a game due to injury. Last season was his first missed game ever, and that was due to a close contact covid tracing. Unfortunately, Landry is dealing with a knee injury, and he will be placed on IR. He will miss at least three weeks. There is some good news, however. OBJ (0%, $2.07/share) will most likely be making his season debut this Sunday, albeit most likely with limited snaps. If you remember, OBJ tore his ACL in his left knee early last season, but word around camp is he is a full participant in practice. We all have to remember that practice speed and game speed are two different things. The Browns know better than to rush him out and potentially have setbacks, so he will most likely be on a snap count, if they allow him to play at all.
OKAY, so, who the hell is going to catch the ball for the Browns Sunday? The Bears with Justin Fields aren’t going to be pushovers, so they can’t just hand the ball off to Chubb (-2%, $9.13/share) and Hunt (-12%, $8.22/share) all game long. They will actually have to pass the ball, at least a few times. Enter my man, Austin Hooper. I am expecting a massive game for Austin this week, and he currently has a middling projection of just 9 points. For comparison's sake, that's a lower projection than the last two weeks to start the season, and what exactly is different? Do we feel worse about Hooper this week than we did last week? What has changed to make his projection decrease? If anything, it should have increased. Let's take a look at why 9 fpts is too low. First and foremost, let's discuss Baker’s injury one more time. We are dealing with a sore throwing arm shoulder. When your shoulder hurts, do you want to throw it really hard and far, or soft and short? Who is usually in short yardage situations? Running backs and tight ends. The running backs are great options too, but they have substantially higher projections, and are too risky. The next metric to check is who Baker is targeting. So far through two games, Baker has thrown 49 passes. Only 16 of those passes have been to wide receivers. Baker is clearly making an effort to use his RBs and TEs in his offence. Hooper has been targeted on eight of those passes, which leads the team. He also caught all eight passes, and made the most of it. In both games to open the season, Hooper has had a target in the red zone. He has gone scoreless thus far, but the endzone is calling his name. Imagine having a 9 point projection, and you score a 10 yard touchdown catch. That is 8 fpts alone. We are on our way to a big payday.
Do I think Hooper has the chops to break out and become an elite tight end the rest of the season? No, not really, but we don’t need the rest of the season. I will be investing in Hoop for the three or so weeks Landry is sidelined, and while OBJ is acclimating to NFL game speed. Once OBJ and Landry are both back on the field, Hooper will go back to being Mr. Irrelevant in my eyes, but until then, Buy, Buy, Buy.
UFC
Considering we are just a little over a month away from the UFC IPO date on PredictionStrike, we have another UFC preview for you! Last week was an amuse-bouche, this week is the main course. Tomorrow night is a massive PAY-PER-VIEW event, UFC 266 in beautiful Las Vegas, where we don’t have one, but rather two title fights headlining the card. Sure, we could talk about how Volkanovski and Shevchenko are both defending their titles, or maybe even the anticipated return of Nick Diaz, but I had success last week with targeting fights in the prelims, so I am going back to the well. If I was to have one gripe with the UFC, it would be that it starts so damn late. If us Easterners want to watch the main event, we have to stay up sometimes as late as 1:00 AM. Don’t they know it's football season! I need my beauty sleep before a big day of sitting on the couch the next day! Luckily for us, the pick this week is the VERY FIRST FIGHT OF THE NIGHT! Yes, that means the fighters will be entering the octagon around 6:00 PM Eastern time. Much more my tempo!
Let's meet our two fighters. Jonathan Pierce (10-4) and Omar Morales (11-1) are both in the Featherweight division, meaning they are both no more than 146 pounds. I was in the 7th grade when I last weighed 146 pounds, but that’s neither here nor there. Pierce has a slight advantage in height, while Morales has a slight advantage in reach. Both of these fighters are traditional stand-up fighters, both winning the majority of their fights either by decision or by TKO. If this does go to the ground, advantage Morales. Morales has five victories by submission, while Pierce only has one. If you look at these two fighters' fight logs, you can tell what type of fight each of them will try and pursue. Pierce has only gone the distance, and had fights determined by decision in two of his 14 professional fights. Morales on the other hand has gone to decision in all four of his UFC sanctioned fights, his most recent. In the “minor league” fights, Morales won all his fights, but one by TKO or submission. The outlier win was by decision. The only loss on Morales’ record was a little more than a year ago on “Fight Island '' Abu Dhabi, to Giga Chikadze. If you are new to the sport, PLEASE, save Giga Chikadze’s name somewhere in your phone notes, and remember his name come PredictionStrike IPO day. Mark my words, he will be the featherweight champion within 12-18 months, and you will be able to buy him relatively cheap.
Now, consider how highly I regard Giga, and consider he is the only blemish on Morales’ almost perfect record. 11 wins, and one loss to a future champion, while Pierce has four losses to average joes. If you ask me, we have another situation like last week where one fighter is just on another level then his opponent, but the odds between the two are way too close. This is basically being considered a toss-up, with Morales as a slight favorite. Betting odds are currently sitting at Morales wins (-140,) which in the sport of UFC is basically a coin flip. In reality, Omar Morales is faster, stronger, has a better ground game, and has better cardio then Pierce. Pierce will try and come out swinging, and Morales knows this. Remember, Morales has superior reach on Pierce, so when Pierce goes for strike, Morales can parry, and strike back with punishing blows. As long as Pierce doesn’t shock me with a first round TKO, this is almost guaranteed to be a Morales win by decision.
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