Miracle Covers

Week 17 Picks

Steelers -6 (-125) I just see Pittsburgh, with a “win-and-get-in” situation for the bye and the division, take care of a struggling Browns team at home today.  Plus out of all the lines where this type of situation occurs, this one is the most reasonable to bet on, even with the juice.

Falcons -13 John Fox just got canned, the Falcons lost a very winnable game on Monday night versus the Saints, and homefield is on the line for Atlanta.  You know Mike Smith must of gave these guys hell in the meetings this week watching the Saints game film, especially on offense where they had problems running the ball.  Methinks they take it out on the Panthers today, and be motivated enough to get a big lead to pull starters in the 4th.

Packers/Bears Over 42 Resting or no resting, these teams will score a lot today, especially with how good Rodgers looks at home vs the Giants this week, and the Bears getting big plays in between 5-6 plays of superior mediocrity on offense led by Jay Cutler.  Plus Cutler COULD throw a few TDs to the Packers D, too.  And you throw in the Devin Hester, but I doubt that because the Packers were dumb enough to kick to him on Week 4 and paid the price

4 team Teaser @ 3-1 (You can also add the Packers -4 in this one @ 4.5-1 if the Falcons game is already decided as then the Bears will just be resting people):

Steelers PK

Colts -4

Ravens -4

Falcons -8

For those of you paying attention…

And you know who you are…sean is lighting it up.  If you look at Sean’s picks it is amazing how common sense his approach is.  Talking about jets/bears over, “too much talent on the field here to not score.”  Discussing the Packers, “Green Bay, IMO, is just TOO good to NOT make the playoffs.”  So what does he do, he bets accordingly.  He saw the same line we all did, Ravens -3.5 at Cleveland and while we were all rationalizing how the Browns would cover, Sean bet the Ravens.  Well done, Sean.

Week 16 Picks

GB -3 vs NYG

Eli Manning (who NEVER talks) spoke up in the locker room this week, telling his team to shake off that last epic fail of a loss vs Philly and speaking the importance of this game vs Green Bay, who looked awesome on Sunday night and probably would of won if Rodgers started.  Green Bay, IMO, is just TOO good to NOT make the playoffs (and they arn’t coached by Norv Turner), so I’m gonna take the pack here to take care of business at home and grab that final 6th playoff spot.

Teaser: NYG/CHI O 30 + HOU/DEN O 43

Even though a Rex Ryan led defense is always ready to play “foot-ball“, too much talent on the field here to not score. Houston and Denver are starting turnstiles on their defensive lines (minus Mario Williams) vs two teams who can run the ball with anybody with Foster and Tebow.

I mean ,the Jets are just destined to make the AFC Championship game vs the Pats, where they are losing 35-10 i nthe 4th quarter as fans chant, “smell our feet!”, right?

Rams -3

Because I think the football gods will NOT allow a 7-9 team to get into the playoffs (Imagine that line!).

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.

Glad I Spent 600+ Words Ripping Chicago

The curse of the blog continues? In all fairness it was a very well played game, at home, by the Bears and absolutely horrendous play calling by the Eagles. Can anyone explain to me why the Eagles kicked field goals in the 4th quarter down 31-13 and 31-16?

Some other notes:

– We’ve now found the level of quarterback at which the Texans defense becomes NFL level calibre. That level is called Rusty Smith.

– Is Matt Lineart really a worse QB than the collection of guys Arizona has been trotting out all season?

– Packers/Falcons was the best game I’ve seen all season.

– Week 13 lines are up. Who is the 3-team teaser this week?

Lastly, some Grey Cup highlights from a video recording on some Canadian dude’s TV. Sounds about right.