Lou & Pat’s Open Bets
As most of the readers of this site are aware, Pat & I have significant action with one another on some NFL regular season bets that are still very much undecided with 4 weeks to go. By far the most interesting is Kansas City to win the AFC West at 10:1. Here’s the situation headed into week 13 courtesy of Rany Jazayerli.
The Chargers are only one game back, and of course they still have a home game left against the Chiefs.
If the Chargers win that game, not only do they make up the difference in the standings, they would take the lead in tiebreakers. The teams would finish even head-to-head, but a loss to the Chargers would mean that the best record the Chiefs could finish with in-division is 3-3.
The Chargers would have two wins in the division, meaning they’d only need to beat either Oakland or Denver to win the tiebreaker. That’s because, even if the Chiefs and Chargers both finish with the same in-divison record, the Chargers will almost certainly win the third tiebreaker, which is a team’s record in common games.
The Chiefs and Chargers share 14 of the 16 games on their schedule; the only two games which are not shared are Buffalo and Cleveland (for the Chiefs) and New England and Cincinnati (for the Chargers). The Chiefs were 2-0 in non-common games; the Chargers lost to New England already and haven’t played the Bengals yet. If both teams finish, say, 10-6 overall, then the Chiefs would be 8-6 in common games; the Chargers would be at least 9-5, and would win the division.
The implications of all this:
1) There’s no way to over-state the importance of the Chiefs-Chargers game in San Diego in two weeks. For the Chargers, it’s really a must-win game – if they lose that game, they’ll be two games back and lose a tiebreaker. If the Chiefs win that game, they are guaranteed to finish ahead of San Diego in the standings if they finish 10-6. If the Chiefs beat San Diego, not only are they guaranteed to win the division if they finish 11-5, but their guaranteed to win the division if they finish 10-6 unless Oakland wins their last five games.
If the Chiefs lose to San Diego, they lose control of their destiny. If they lose to the Chargers, then even if the Chiefs win their other four games, they have to hope San Diego loses somewhere else along the way.
In short: the Chiefs are more likely to win the division with a 10-6 record and a victory in San Diego, than with an 11-5 record and a loss in San Diego.
This jives with all of the playoff odds reports I’ve seen. It also makes sense intuitively. The Chargers are clearly the better team but are one game behind. Assuming both teams win this weekend, it creates an optimal hedging opportunity in week 14 when the Chiefs travel to Kansas City. Given that it will be extremely difficult for the loser of that game to win the division, I can bet the Chargers moneyline with confidence and lock in a profit regardless of the result. We’ll go over those options in detail next week.
Pat & I also have our confidence pools for season wins. 5 points for the first team on the list decreasing to 1 for the last. Our picks were as follows:
- Pat
Oakland OVER 6
San Francisco OVER 8.5
San Diego UNDER 11
Tennessee OVER 8
NY Giants OVER 8.5
- Lou
Dallas UNDER 10
Baltimore OVER 10
Houston UNDER 8
SD UNDER 11
Cincinnati UNDER 8
After a rough first month, Pat’s picks are looking a lot better though I’m helped enormously by the fact the Dallas was kind enough to hit their under by week 8 or so. One way to see where we stand is by how many wins or losses are required by each team for us to hit our respective numbers. I have already hit on Dallas and Cincinnati, but every other bet is still alive. These are all with 5 games to play with the exception of Houston who lost last night.
Pat
Oakland 2 wins (1 to push)
San Francisco (5 wins)
San Diego 1 loss (0 to push)
Tennessee 4 wins (3 to push)
NY Giants 2 wins
Lou
Dallas 0 losses
Baltimore 3 wins (2 to push)
Houston 2 losses (1 to push, from 4 games)
San Diego 1 loss (0 to push)
Cincinnati 0 losses
If San Francisco and Houston win some games in December, this will become much closer again. Of course, Pat will crush me in baseball wins again in the spring and the cycle will likely continue.
