football

Monday Meanderings

G Betting, college, football, Football Pools, gambling, Monday Night Football, NFL, sports, sportsbook , , , , , , , , , ,

What constitutes a catch in the NFL?  That TD “catch” by Golden Tate was bogus.  If I were a Bears fan, I would have lost my mind.

Speaking of losing my mind…  I’m not a Colts fan whatsoever, but that fake punt was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.  It was an insult to the game of football and I did lose my mind.  We still covered, though….  (wink)

How about that implosion by the Michigan punter?  First he drops the snap and then instead of falling on the ball he decides to pitch it perfectly to hit a Michigan State defender in stride racing for the winning touchdown.  I don’t think he could have set it up better if he tried.  We can still see Michigan beating Ohio State.  Michigan State is well coached, but not that good.  So Big Ten could have some challenges get into the Playoff.  Of course, an overrated Iowa team taking its lumps to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game will conveniently take care of that.  Ohio State will make the playoffs.

In today’s college football, to see a game end 9-6 is unheard of.  Georgia – Missouri somehow pulled that off.

Seahawks can’t seem to hold onto victories any more.  Two straight weeks they’ve allowed a team to come back to beat them. They may not make the playoffs this season.

We still like Pittsburgh as the team most likely to ruin the Patriots’ season come playoff time.

The Packers need to figure out how to move the ball with all their wide receiver injuries.  Eddie Lacy must be playing on a still injured ankle because he can’t seem to do anything.  Bye week came at right time for them.

Jay Gruden defends Cousins for stat lines similar to those of RG3 that make Gruden publicly trash him.  If RG3 weren’t a black conservative, there would be howls of racism.  The ‘skins need to give up on Cousins.

Now that Miami is back to running the ball, look for them to be competitive again.

EJ Manuel  didn’t look bad.

Monday Night Football

The Giants getting 4 points seems like the obvious play.  So of course we’ll go the opposite.

Philadelphia  -4 and Under 51

Sunday Funday!

G Betting, football, Football Pools, gambling, NFL, sports, sportsbook , , , , , , , ,

We took it on the chin yesterday and blame ourselves for backing off some of our games.  There were four other games we had listed on our pre game sheet and reduced the number to ten (excluding the casual play).  No sense arbitrarily reducing it to ten. The ones we backed off on were winners.  Lesson learned – play ’em all.

Which puts us in a quandary today since we’ve a feeling this could be a big week for the public.  But, we won on Thursday backing a Saints team that had little hope.  So…..  for today:

1:00PM EST Games

Cleveland    +4′

Buffalo    +3′

Kansas City    +4

Jacksonville    -2

Chicago    +4

Chi/Det Under 44′

Washington    +7

Pittsburgh    +4′

Pitt/Ariz Under 45′

Miami    +1′

4:05 – 4:25PM EST Games

Carolina    +7

San Diego    +10′  (casual play only)

SD/GD Under 51′

8:25PM EST Game

Indianapolis    +10′    (casual play only)

NE/Ind Under 54′

Saturday’s Slate

G Betting, college, football, Football Pools, gambling, sports , , , , ,

Here you go!

Noon    Eastern Michigan    +28′

Noon    West Virginia    +21

Noon    Kansas    +33′

2:30pm    Miami OH    +16

3:30pm    Troy    -10  (cancelled)

3:30pm    Virginia    -7

3:30pm    Boston College    +17

3:30pm    Texas A&M  +4    (casual game only for viewing pleasure)

7:00pm    Wake Forest    +17

7:30pm    Central Florida    +21′

7:30pm    Georgia    -14′

We feel the same way about the Georgia game as we felt going into the New Orleans Saints game Thursday night, but we won that one too.

NFL Pool Picks

G Betting, college, football, Football Pools, gambling, sports , , , , ,

This is the week Vegas may take a bath.  There are non-sensical lines all over the place.  This is the week the betters likely clean house.

But, as you know, that isn’t the way we roll.

Here are our pool picks, with only mild confidence.

New Orleans   +3′

Cleveland    +4′

Buffalo  +1

Kansas City   +3′

Jacksonville    Pick

Detroit    -3

Washington    +5′

Pittsburgh    +3

Miami    +2′

Carolina    +7

San Diego   +10

Baltimore    -2′

Indianapolis    +7

Philadelphia    -4

We also question when we pick against New England and Green Bay.  The lines for Atlanta and Cinci seem too good to be true.  But, we will stand by our picks for.  We don’t blame you if you don’t.

Remember though, things may change by the time betting times actually come around.

Monday Meanderings

G Betting, college, football, Football Pools, gambling, Monday Night Football, NFL, sports , , , , , , ,

First, people want to know our overall record thus far.  Remember we break picks down into categories of pool picks, regular picks, and casual picks.  Here we go:

NFL Pool Picks with spread equals 17 – 11

NFL Regular Picks with spread equals 13 – 11

NFL Casual Picks with spread equals 2 – 3

College Regular Picks with spread equals 20 – 15

College Casual Picks equals 3 – 0

We dug a hole our first week out, but quickly dug out of it.  Over the course of the year we feel confident we’ll correctly pick over 60% of our games.

Now for our Monday Meanderings….

This week’s college ranked teams to fall were #10, #13, #17, #19, & #23.  Oklahoma State would have been another if West Virginia had a QB.  Look for a change in West Virginia from Skyler Howard to William Crest after their game at Baylor this week. The reason is they then have a bye before traveling to TCU for a nationally televised game on a Thursday night.

We correctly forecasted that Texas would spoil someone’s season this year.  This is a team that has been underperforming, but has the talent to turn it around.  They could wreck the entire Big XII’s chances for a national championship, though we don’t believe that will happen.

Michigan State continues to get by, but it is only a matter of time before they take a fall.  We expect them to lose at least two games the remainder of the year.

Look for Michigan to be this year’s Ohio State.  The only difference being last year Ohio State lost to a horrible team yet somehow were still given an opportunity to get in the playoffs over more worthy teams while this year Michigan lost to a solid Utah squad.

Our college playoff predictions this year for now are:  Michigan, Notre Dame, TCU & Alabama.  Potential replacements are Ohio State, Baylor, Utah, and Clemson.

Aaron Rodgers is human!  Three turnovers?!  Yet they still won by 14 points.  The Packers defense is for real and has depth.

If you had jumped off the Eagles bandwagon after a couple weeks this season, don’t think about jumping back on.  They beat up on a bad Saints squad.  The Eagles aren’t as bad as they looked all year, but they are not as good as they looked yesterday. Stay away.

It appears the football gods are still not done punishing the Seahawks for their improbable comeback last year against the Packers in the NFC Championship Game.  Not only did they have defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in the Super Bowl, but then yesterday lost a 17 point lead to Cincinnati to lose again.  Packers fans smile.

The Redskins have a solid defense.  Sad they choose to play the “safe” QB in Cousins who is simply too limited to take them where they want to go.  RG3 may have a lower floor than Cousins, but he also has a higher ceiling.  The NFL isn’t the place to allow fear to drive your decisions.  Go with the higher ceiling player and see what happens.

We simply can not believe the Lions are winless.  This team has too much talent to be winless.  We won’t be shocked if they rebound to 8 – 8.

Poor Derek Carr was betrayed.  He had the Raiders poised for the upset against the Broncos with a late game drive into Broncos territory where he threaded the needle between two open Raiders receivers running crossing patterns.  Unfortunately neither receiver was looking for the pas and it went right in-between the two into the hands of a Broncos defender who intercepted the pass.

You can’t stop Josh McCown, you can only hope to contain him.   Just kidding.  But for fantasy players, he is an okay QB playing for a bad defensive team.  He may put up monster stats all year.

Monday Night Football

Take the under 46.

If you want to be able to root for one team, then a casual play only here – San Diego -3′

Sunday Funday!

G Betting, football, Football Pools, gambling, NFL, sports , , , , ,

Yes, we had a good Saturday of games.  We hope you came along for the ride.  Today we will contradict some of our pool picks as Wednesday was so long ago and the landscape has changed.

Here are our picks today:

Early Games

Tennessee    +3

Washington    +7′

Washington/Atlanta Under 48′

Buffalo/Tennessee Under 42′

Late Games

Detroit    +3

Arizona/Detroit Under 46

Oakland   +5

Denver/Oakland  Under 44′

Night Game

San Francisco    +7   (casual play only)

Saturday’s Slate

G Betting, college, football, gambling, sports , , , ,

The Friday night games were too suspect to make even casual picks on.  Here are our Saturday leanings as of Friday night on a dozen contests:

Noon    Texas    +16′

Noon    Penn State    -7

Noon    Army    +13

2:30pm    Rice    +4  (read update below)**

3:30pm    Tennessee    +3

3:30pm    Michigan    -10

3:30pm    South Florida    -1′

7:00pm    Colorado St    +15′

7:00pm    Nevada    -4′

8:00pm    Florida State    +7′

10:00pm   Colorado    +16

10:00pm    Cal    +7′

UPDATE on Saturday, 10/10 at 9:35am EST

Even though some lines have changed since we posted the above last night, we left the lines as they were in the post for a benchmark for our readers.

**We backed Rice back to casual play only.  Weird morning betting trend with no line movement.

We added in:

3:00pm    Akron    -8

3:30pm    Northern Illinois    -10

7:30pm    Missouri    +4′

Thursday Night NFL Game – Week 5

G Betting, college, football, gambling, NFL, sports , , , , ,

We regret we’ve no leanings on the two college games tonight.  The NFL game is a curious one and we’re going to contradict ourselves.  When we posted our pool picks, we took the Colts -2′.  Some places are not even providing a line at the moment due to the question marks around the Colts’ QB situation.  The line has also moved to the Texans -2′.

This is a situation where the public is betting the Colts both on the spread and straight up at a 61% clip.  However, the line move indicates the heavy hitters are backing the Texans.  Additionally, the public is backing the under play at a 77% clip moving the line from 45 points to 43′.

We will likely never recommend taking an over as the under is most often the smarter play.   But, we would not recommend the under here.  If we were going to lay a little money for entertainment value only, we would take the over.

As for the game, we’ll go against our pool pick and make a casual play only on Texans at -2′.

If we had played this correctly, and we did not, we would have taken the Texans at +2′ and now grabbed the Colts at +2′ and attempted to land in the center.  Basically gambling the juice of one game to win twice.  Low risk – high reward.

UPDATE at 7:52 EST

With the announcement Luck wasn’t playing the line has moved again.  Houston is now -5′.

We placed a casual play only on Colts completely contradicting our earlier pick.  It all depends on when you got in.  Just go small and enjoy the anxiety of having something risked.

Monday Meanderings

G Betting, college, football, gambling, Monday Night Football, sports , , , , , ,

We had a mildly successful weekend.  The public is going to continue to back certain teams and be rewarded for it.  Green Bay is one of those teams.  New England is another.  We’re going to take the approach in the future of “if you can’t beat them, join them.”  We’ll likely only do so casually, even though it goes against our methodology as whole.

Here are our random meanderings…

One of the things that makes college football so great is the chaos.  This week the following rankings lost:  #3, #6, #7, #8, #19, #21, & #23.  Sure, many to other ranked teams, but it is glorious to watch. Other highly ranked teams barely escaped.  Looking at you Michigan State and Oklahoma State.  (Look for both to lose soon in coming week(s).

Notre Dame will still get in the college football playoffs.  Not because they will be deserving, but that they have an easy schedule and will likely only lose one game all year – until the playoffs.  Ohio State was not deserving of being in the playoffs last year.  The best team was frozen out in TCU.

Speaking of TCU, certain teams in the Big XII just match up well against others.  TCU against Texas is an example.  When those match ups occur, blow outs follow.

The SEC’s over-rated-ness is tiring.  If ever there is a season where they may get shut out of a championship opportunity, though, this is it.  One assumes Notre Dame will earn one spot, Ohio State another (Michigan State is overrated), Baylor or TCU a third since it would be nuts for them to get robbed again, then Clemson or Utah.  The ACC is so weak and the Pac 12 is down, so one of those teams needs to run the table.  If either don’t, though, expect the SEC to sneak in.  If Arizona State beats Utah, though, Pac 12 is out as Arizona State lost to Texas A&M week one.  Michigan could play a spoiler in this for the Big Ten, but if they did they would have a chance of sneaking in themselves.  Sounds nuts, right?  But Ohio State lost at home last year to a deplorable VA Tech in somehow got in over a TCU squad who barely lost to a one loss Baylor.  That was nuts!

We said last week we’ve been underestimating the Arizona Cardinals, but went against them again and finally won.

The Denver Broncos defense is going to have to carry them all season.  They’ll definitely make the playoffs, but does anyone see them beating the NFL’s best teams?

Green Bay finally gets by two teams that have haunted them in recent years – Seattle and San Francisco.  Green Bay’s defense looks very solid.  They won’t see an elite QB though until Dallas in week 13.  Yes, we just said Russell Wilson, Philip Rivers, and Peyton Manning are not elite.

Colin Kaepernick is horrible.  He has always been horrible.  You make him a white QB who wears Christianity on his arm and he’s out of the league.  You make him a conservative black and he’ll be relegated to third string.

The new extra point rule is killing kickers.  Not only are kickers missing those, but now some can’t make a kick to save their lives.  An erosion of confidence.

Cincinnati and New England will be vying for the AFC Championship.  Potential spoiler will be a late surging Pittsburgh Steelers.

Atlanta and Green Bay will be vying for the NFC Championship, but the NFC has more teams that could play potential spoiler – including a late surging Dallas Cowboys.

Monday Night Football:

Detroit +9′