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!).
Holiday Tease
Merry Christmas everybody! Been away for a while as I had some login issues, traveled to Vegas, and was crowned a drinking champion along with Jaguars LB Eric Alexander. I’ve also been logging my bets on:
http://www.twitter.com/seanismoney
Follow me there for daily bets, quips, and intelligent thoughts that are 160 characters or less.
I’ve been doing well this year, batting .695 for the year. I was at .775, but I’ve been miracle covered the last few weeks (including The Debacle on a Thursday Night in Tennessee when the Titans scored a TD with NO time left to lose 30-28…….the last drive of that game deserves a column on its own).
Today’s tease: Miami Heat +7 and the Over for the Dallas/Cardinals game 39. I finally have a reason to root for The Douche 3, as nothing trumps my disdain more for Lebron, than the Lakers.
I also took the Ravens @ -3.5 on Monday; I just don’t see them losing this game with so much on the line. I’ll have more thoughts going into this Sunday about the Packers, and the Jets, who considering how there season has gone along with the foot-fetish news with Rex Ryan, are fans of the agony of victory, and the THRILL of defeat.
On a final note, I got some new games for the XBOX 360 today. Just played some capture the flag with Chad Ochocinco on Call of Duty: Black Ops.
And as you all know, I have a great love for sports games, so I am really excited to start a season in this title below later:
College B’ball
For those of you interested the Matrix site was wrong with its Wash St pick. I opted not to bet with the site before the game. The runners of the site note that they tend to struggle more during the early parts of the year because the formula they use relies heavily on current year game results, and K St had been blown out by Duke previously, which seemed to me would skew things a bit too much. I just stayed away entirely from the game, which K St won by 5. My original plan was to tell VT about the computer’s pick but when I saw the pick, I didn’t. That pick is one that does not sync with VT’s betting style. VT will definitely bet some underdogs but his trademark is to bet favorites who he feels are not getting enough respect. When a top tier is favored by only a few points. Betting Wash St in that game, especially when they are only +2.5, is a complete 180. Portland 58 Montana 54, Marist 80 Niagara 72, Idaho 63 North Dakota 42, Georgia 66 UAB 64, Iona 94 Canisus 85, Villanova 71 St Joseph’s 60 This means that ATS…
- Home teams were 3-3
- Ranked or higher ranked teams were 0-1
- Favorites and underdogs were 3-3
Home, away, favorite, underdog, all end up being at .500 ATS throughout this project, which means Vegas is batting 1.000.
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.
NCAA B’Ball continued
First things first on a few issues. The random Matrix web site hit the money with the Samford pick. Well done! So I won 15 bucks betting against a team that up until yesterday I didn’t know had a Division I program. People might call that a little nutty to be betting money on something like that. And to that I say, please meet my gambling insane roommate who did a three team round-robin bet with the top 3 teams that the web site he never had heard of recommended. And he hit all three.
For those who are interested in riding the hot streak the link is this.
I am slightly confused at the layout, they offer two sets of picks, one using “Decision Tree” model and one using “Similar Games” model and I haven’t looked into things enough to figure exactly what the hell they are talking about but me and V used the Decision Tree model last night, and if you go with that you’ll be taking Wash St tonight. Take that for what it’s worth.
Second, there a chance this site has subscribers. Recently there was a comment from “Paul.” Paul notes…
“I’ve been reading this website for a little while now and I think that (Pat’s) cockiness is getting the better of (him). Maybe (Pat) should take it down a notch.”
That’s right, it’s ffffffffffffFFFFFFFFFFAAAAAAANNNNN MAIL!
How do you even find this site? This is exciting! Paul’s problem with me is based on his idea that through this Project I am trying to show I have more savvy than Vegas. But the real main issue with the College Basketball thing is just trying to keep myself current. If it wasn’t for this thing I wouldn’t know that Marist is just as horrible this year as they were last year, 0 wins in real life and ATS. Let’s see how Vegas did last night…Murray St 74 E Kentucky 72, Arizona St 54 Baylor 68, Rider 88 Manhattan 59, Mercer 67 Belmont 89, UCLA 76 Kansas 77, Oral Roberts 71 Western Illinois 58. Looking back I think I messed up and there wasn’t a spread on the Mercer Belmont game. I’ll update the stats and such if I was wrong. With what we got, ATS…
- Home teams were 2-3
- Ranked or ranked higher teams were 1-1
- Favorites were 3-2
Moving forward…
- Portland (+3.5) @ Montana
- Niagra (-6.5) @ Marist
- North Dakota (+10) @ Idaho
- UAB (+3) @ Georgia
- Canisus (+8.5) @ Iona
- St Joseph’s (+19) @ Villanova
NCAA Lines
Continuing project from a few days ago. Going back to the results of the first set of games we picked…Illinois 73 Yale 47, UTEP 73 New Mexico St 56, Santa Clara 87 N Colorado 84, Kentucky 74 Washington 67, Texas Tech 103 Georgia Southern 79, UC Davis 61 Sacramento St 54. Home team is in italics, bold team covered. ATS Notes
- Home teams were 3-2
- Ranked or ranked higher teams were 2-0
- Favorites and underdogs were 3-3
So Vegas was pretty spot on, no surprise there. Let’s keep the train rolling.
- Murray St (-4) @ E Kentucky
- Arizona St (+9.5) @ Baylor
- Rider (-5.5) @ Manhattan
- Mercer @ Belmont
- UCLA (17.5) @ Kansas
- Oral Roberts (-6.5) @ Western Illinois
And as a special note I stumbled across a web site that gives out free picks on college basketball games that they throw into something I like to picture as being essentially equivalent to the Matrix and what got spit out as their number one confidence pick for tonight is…Samford as a home pick em against W Carolina. Sure you might be only slightly certain that the W in W Carolina stands for Western, but that doesn’t matter. Let’s see what this Matrix machine is capable of, I got 15 bucks on it.
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.
How Far Off is Vegas on College Basketball (Probably Not Very)
New project. I am going to take half a dozen games chosen at random from college b-ball, note the line, and note how far off Vegas was. I am just curious enough to do this, let’s get this started and hope I don’t puss out on this after a day or two. I’ll include games that are at neutral sites, but not ones that are confusing. It took me about ten minutes to figure out (and I’m still not positive about this) that Duke is somehow the listed home team against Kansas St in Kansas City, MO
- Yale (+24.5) @ Illinois
- New Mexico St (+10) @ UTEP
- No. Colorado (+6.5) @ Santa Clara
- Washington (-3.5) N Kentucky
- Georgia Southern (+22) @ Texas Tech
- UC Davis (+1) @ Sacramento St
Da Bears
I’m on record publicly as being skeptical of the Bears’ success so far this season (and Tampa to a lesser extent, though I’ll leave that for another post). It’s not that Chicago has a terrible team, they’re easily a mid-table side capable of beating most teams at home and are expected underdogs on the road versus all but the bottom 20-25% of the league. Their defense is very good and their special teams are back to being excellent again.
The offense however, is offensive. They’ve yet to score 30 points in a game this season and are still near the bottom of the league in short yardage, an improvement over ranking 32nd in 2009. Cutler and the skill players are not bad, but obviously their line is atrocious and is preventing the Bears from being a Super Bowl contender.
Similar to college basketball, road records can often tell you a lot about the actual quality of a team. Beating teams at home isn’t particularly indicative of a good team. Teams with poor home records, however, are almost never good. Only six teams have recorded four or more road wins this season: Pittsburgh, NY Jets, Philadelphia, Miami, Tampa and Chicago. The first three are among the best in the league, Miami has been horribly unlucky and I’ll cover Tampa in a later post. Looking at the Bears road wins, they’ve beaten two teams without an NFL caliber QB (Carolina and Miami), the 2-8 Bills and the 3-7 Cowboys. Sorry if I’m not overly convinced.
All of this is merely a preview for determining the proper odds on Chicago losing their last 6 games in a row. Their schedule is arguably the toughest in the league down the stretch:
vs PHI (+3.5) (Eagles ML is -178)
@ DET
vs NE
@ MIN
vs NYJ
@ GB
If we set lines on all of these games, we can then convert to an approximate moneyline and then throw all of these in a parlay calculator to see what the payout should be.
We’ll start with the Packers because it’s the easiest of the 5 remaining to handicap. The Jets host the Bungles this weekend and Baltimore is at home to Tampa. Both of those games are a similar type matchup to Bears @ Green Bay and those games are both -9, -400.
New England and the Jets are both of similar quality to the Eagles and we’ll install both of them at -4, -200.
This leaves divisional road games at Detroit and Minnesota. Detroit is 2-2 at home, routing the Rams, beating the Redskins and losing by a FG to the Jets and Eagles. They are 6.5 point underdogs Thursday at home to New England. I could make an argument Detroit should be favored, but we’ll make the game a pickem for our purposes here. As far as Minnesota, they could have given up on the season by the time this game rolls around. I think this is the Bears best chance to win out of the 6 and will make Minnesota a +1.5, +120 underdog.
Entering these in the parlay calculator (-400, -200, -200, -178, -100, +120) yields a payout of 18.33/1. If you up New England and the Jets to -6, -270 favorites, the payout drops to 15.13 which is pretty close to what I offered Pat if I may say so…
I’ll still take action on this at 15, but there’s no way I can do 12. Even moving the Lions to -140 and the Packers to -450, along with the Jets @ Pats adjustments still leaves it at 12.5. I’ll offer Pat a compromise and say I’m willing to go a low as 14:1 just because I think this will be a fun bet to make and as Pat mentioned, I can’t actually bet this anywhere else.
