A) more action
B) fewer random variables to 'cap and
C) less Yasiel Puig
Puig and Johnny Football must be having a secret contest to see who can earn the most criticism/air time from our drama-hungry media. Word on the street is they have rival reality shows in production as we speak, will both be dating one of the younger up and coming Kardashians, and will be making cameos on Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab all in one painfully long baseball season. After which, of course, Manzeil will serve a half game suspension for smoking rock and banging hookers before leading the Aggies to a convincing, spread-covering victory.
If you're like me, you've been getting increasingly excited about Thursday Night Football since...oh, about half way through April. The best part is when you know that your Thursday is so full that time will whiz by and before you know it you'll be sitting in front of your HD flat screen screaming at the Ravens or Broncos to do something good or bad. See what I did there? If you can figure out my tell by the end of the season, you'll save yourself the seventeen dollar Insider Membership package with all of its glorious benefits.
With the preseason behind us, the quarterback competitions temporarily resolved, the hype just beginning to build, and twenty-two fun-filled weeks of agony and exhilaration ahead, let's jump right into the picks. Doesn't every week start out feeling like 16-0 ATS? It does for us, and this year we have a five expert team who are all convinced they're going to finish the season somewhere around 254-2 ATS. You have to be somewhat realistic, right? Heading into the 2013-14 season, we bring these stats from last year:
2012 Regular Season: 140-118 ATS
Friday Five Confidence Picks*: 36-19 ATS
*I apologize for the misrepresentation of our Friday Five on the website. I just checked the January posts and found our real stats. What I posted at The Spread Zone - and what I will correct immediately - was our NBA playoff record 81-50 ATS (63%). Fortunately for those of you who already purchased the Insider package, you'll be excited to know that the real stats bring us up to 65%. You're welcome - your package just gained value.
That's what she said.
I know - enough already. Here are our NFL Week 1 Picks Against the Spread for (almost) all of the games. The picks described our mine and Marco's, but we're also including the opinions of our Expert Team whether or not they agree with us. As usual, home teams are in CAPS, winners in Bold, and we're also posting OVER/UNDERS this year.
Baltimore Ravens @ DENVER BRONCOS: Reserved for TSZ Insiders. Check out the details.
New England Patriots (-10) over BUFFALO BILLS: The odds makers must have a lot of faith in the New England Patriots to allow this line to cross one of the sacred meridians of football capping. The line opened at 7.5, climbed to 10.5 and settled back down at 10. Either way, however, when lines cross football numbers like 3, 7, 10, 14, and so-on, it allows bettors to do what is called "middling" - beating the book twice by taking one team early and one team late. We believe this makes the favorite more attractive in this case, and so does our team.
We don't think so...
Expert Team: 5-0 New England
O/U: OVER 50
Tennessee Titans (+7) over PITTSBURGH STEELERS: The Pittsburgh defense is good, has always been good, and will probably always be good. What concerns us right now is the Steeler offense. Big Ben says he's never felt so healthy, so if he needs to scramble for a while to find Marcus Wheaton because Emannuel Sanders is double-covered, he'll be able to do that. Meanwhile, Jake Locker is primed to have a breakout year in our minds. He is a gunslinger and he has Kenny Britt who is developing into a dangerous threat. Establish the pass and they set up Chris Johnson to start the year off right. This feels like a low-scoring, back-door cover.
Expert Team: 4-1 Pittsburgh, which means we're the only ones taking the Titans.
O/U: UNDER 42
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (-3) over Atlanta Falcons: This should be the highest scoring game of the week and one of the toughest to cap. The Saints play the Falcons well - especially at home where they've outscored Atlanta 76-43 the last two times they visited. Even last year when the Saints stunk, they managed a home win over Atlanta. Drew Brees is going to make all of Jason Morse's friends sorry they invited me into their fantasy football league and stuck me with the ninth overall pick. Yes, I take things personally, and so does Sean Peyton. His fingerprints will be all over this one. In the last five meetings between these teams, when the game is in New Orleans they go OVER and when it's in Atlanta they've stayed UNDER.
Preparing to slice up Atlanta's D...
Expert Team: 4-1 New Orleans
O/U: Do I really need to say OVER 54
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-3.5) over NEW YORK JETS: Oh how the Jets are going to miss the distraction of Tim Tebow this season when all the focus will be back on how far away they are from being good. That's sentence is called diplomacy. Mark Sanchez and Geno Smith need to have a dance contest or something to sort out the quarterback controversy once and for all. The sad thing is they have a decent defense, but it's hard to hold everyone to zero - especially a Bucs team with air power and the Muscle Hamster (weirdest nickname ever nominee) Doug Martin on the ground. The sadder part is that starting a rookie quarterback in Geno Smith is only nominally worse than starting their veteran, Mr. Guaranteed Money Bags Sanchez. Both of these teams have also hit the UNDER in four of their last five games.
Expert Team: 5-0 Tampa Bay
O/U: UNDER 39.5
Kansas City Chiefs (-3.5) over JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS: In the wake of Alex Smith losing his job to Colin Kaepernick last season, this disgruntled Forty Niner fan stood up and said, "I'm going to root for whichever team picks up my boy Alex." Then I added, "And I hope they get Andy Reid, too," followed by, "And I'd really like to see them start off their new tandem against the likes of the Jacksonville Jaguars." If Blaine Gabbart starts this game, which it appears he will, then Jacksonville should have their cheerleaders making "Welcome Jadaveon Clowney" banners during their down time between cheers. And trust me, there will be plenty of down time.
Expert Team: 5-0 Kansas City
O/U: UNDER 41
CINCINNATI BENGALS (+3) over Chicago Bears: This will be a great game between a pair of quarterbacks Jay Cutler and Big Red Andy Dalton who have exceptional number one receivers in Brandon Marshall and AJ Green. Ironically, in their respective divisions both of these teams will go as far as their defenses carry them. We believe the Bengals are the more complete team right now and have the continuity of personnel which will help them win (or at least cover) close games. We also some defensive plays and lapses will make the score of this game higher than one might anticipate. Take the road dog and the OVER.
Expert Team: 3-2 Bengals
O/U: OVER 41.5 - barely
CLEVELAND BROWNS (PK) over Miami Dolphins: This should be another interesting game in terms of defining the upcoming seasons for these two teams. The Dolphins got rid of Reggie Bush in the off-season, but have a young stud in Lamar Miller to fill his shoes. Meanwhile, if Trent Richardson can stay healthy for the Browns he will be a force to reckon with. Combine that with 47 year-old Brandon Wheedon entering his second year in the NFL and his young receiving corp with another year under their belt, and you might have a surprise .500 team in the AFC North. This game will not have more points than you thought. These two teams have hit the UNDER in 15 of their last 20 combined games. In fact, it might have less. These two teams have hit the UNDER in 15 of their last 20 combined games.We like the home team in a game of field goals.
Expert Team: 3-2 Miami. We'll see about that.
O/U: Way UNDER 41
Seattle Seahawks (-3) over CAROLINA PANTHERS: Everyone is super high on the Seahawks, except of course MaChez who picked them to finish third in the NFC West. Fortunately for him and Seattle, Marco also picked Carolina to finish third in the South. Challenge accepted - by the Seahawks. They are too balanced to lose to Carolina. Both defenses should have solid plans for mobile quarterbacks, but their defenses can put up points in a hurry, which is why I'm taking the OVER, which has hit in 6 of the Seahawks last 8 games. Although my animal-communicating mother-in-law believes this is the year of the cat, the Panthers will have to wait until next week to get their cat nip on. In the residual Year of the Bird, take the 'Hawks and give up the field goal.
Expert Team: 4-1 Seattle
O/U: OVER 45
Minnesota Vikings (+4.5) over DETROIT LIONS: Too many points. The Vikings play in a dome, too. They can deal with the noise and they can deal with the Lions O-line and put pressure on Matthew Stafford. We believe the Lions might pull this game out, but the Vikings ground and pound mentality will slow things down just enough for them to keep pace. The Lions are 1-3 ATS against the Vikings the past two years with the average margin of victory in the games being 6.5 points. The OVER, however, is 3-1 in said games.
Expert Team: 3-2 Minnesota
O/U: OVER 46.5
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (-9.5) over Oakland Raiders: I don't know how much detail I need to go into for this game. I believe the Raiders starting Terrelle Pryor is a great move, but it won't be good enough to keep up with Andrew Luck who should take over the Best Quarterback in the NFL title by Week 4. The Raiders are awful. Unless by some miracle the dome implodes at halftime, the Raiders will lose this game by 20. Surprisingly, however, the Colts hit the UNDER in 10 of 16 games last year. With the Raiders inability to score and the tendency of NFL teams to slow things down when they're way ahead, I see this game following suit.
Expert Team: 4-1 Colts
O/U: Under 47
ST LOUIS RAMS (-4.5) over Arizona Cardinals: Can you say defensive battle? The Arizona Cardinals were the surprise team of the preseason, holding the Green Bay Packers scoreless en route to a 3-1 preseason record. Meanwhile, the St. Louis Rams were also impressive on the defensive end and now have both consistency and weapons on offense for the young-ish Sam Bradford. This should be another great game to start the season, and we see the Rams continuing their 2012 dominance of the NFC West with a convincing, low-scoring victory.
Expert Team: 3-2 St. Louis
O/U: UNDER
Green Bay (+4.5) over SAN FRANCISCO FORTY NINERS: Game of the week. The Packers did not appear any more prepared for a mobile quarterback in their preseason game against Seattle, but we believe it's all a part of a long con designed to lull Colin Kaepernick into a false sense of confidence. The truth is, if a quarterback can be more over-hyped than Kaepy was last year, we have no idea how, and we believe that he will have a shaky first game, just enough to let the Packers steal the cover. Niners might win, but it will be a late field goal by their new/ancient-looking kicker. Weird looking dude, right?
Expert Team: 4-1 Green Bay. This is chance to shine, Kyle.
O/U: OVER
New York Giants (+3) over DALLAS COWBOYS: Tough call with a game opening up in Big D, but in this series, this rivalry, this division, we'll generally take the points. The Giants have owned the Cowboys the past two seasons, winning and covering 3 of 4 games. In fact, Dallas hasn't won a home game against New York since 2008. That's quite a run, and we see it continuing Sunday night.
Expert Team: 3-2 New York
O/U: OVER, but not until the last five minutes of the game.
MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
Philadelphia Eagles @ WASHINGTON REDSKINS: Reserved for TSZ Insiders. Find out what the big deal is.
Houston Texans @ SAN DIEGO CHARGERS: Reserved for TSZ Insiders. Sign up today to get your $17 worth.
Well, there you have it folks. For a summary, please check out our Experts Page back at The Spread Zone.
Good luck all and happy betting,
Vinny and Marco
No comments:
Post a Comment