Last weekend was profitable for Mythical Picks – even though the first game of the weekend was the one that I got so horribly wrong. My premise was that Indy would have to use at least eight men in the box to stop the Chiefs from running and with that, Trent Green could beat them through the air. Trent Green couldn’t beat an egg last weekend and with as many as nine guys in the box in “run situations”, Larry Johnson was like a sports car with an empty gas tank, a flat tire and the keys locked inside it – not going anywhere.
Anyhow, I went 3-1 against the spread in the four games last weekend. That would have generated a Mythical Profit of $190. However, I also lost a mythical $50 on the money line taking KC. So the net Mythical Profit for the week was $140.
Combining that with the regular season totals, the tally is 149-130-4 for all mythical wagers and a net Mythical Profit of $990.
Despite that record of success, no one should take any information here as the basis for making a wager involving real money. Only dumb folks would do that – folks dumb enough to try to kill a bird by throwing it over a cliff.
General Comments:
This weekend and next weekend represent the best viewing opportunities of the NFL season. The eight teams left in the playoffs are not all great teams that may someday invite comparison to Lombardi’s Packers of the 60s; they all have their flaws. But usually, the semi-final games and the conference championship games are more exciting than the Super Bowl games, many of which have been deadly dull to watch. In addition, there’s only one game on Super Bowl weekend; this weekend you have four games to watch and next weekend you have two. So, if you are a football fan, this is the weekend to make sure that your activities include a TV and a remote and a couch and some kind of snacks that involve salt or cheese or both.
When the Eagles beat the Giants with no time left on the clock Sunday night, it meant that all four of the home teams – the higher seeded teams – won in the first round of the playoffs. From this point on in the playoffs, only division champions are involved; there won’t be a wild-card team making some kind of “Cinderella run” this year. All four of the home teams were favored of course; the two in the AFC (Indy and New England) covered the spread comfortably; the two NFC favorites did not cover. Once again this weekend, all of the home teams – the higher seeded ones – are favored…
There’s been some minor brouhaha this week about the Chargers and the Bears restricting sales of tickets to people who live in zip codes near their respective cities in order to keep the crowd solidly in favor of the home team. Naturally, the folks who are charter members of the “Society Of People Spring Loaded To Be Pissed Off About Nearly Everything” [SOPSLTBPOANE], have wailed about the unfairness of all this. To them I say – with great empathy:
Get over it!
Last I checked on TicketsNow.com, you can still get tix for the game in San Diego and Chicago but they’re not exactly cheap. I didn’t check every offering, but the prices seem to range from $225 per seat to $2750 per seat. Think about it; for $2750 you could alternatively buy a nice High-Def TV set and watch loads of NFL games from now into the future. Or you could go to a single game. Put those cheese covered snacks over hear near the couch, please.
(Sat) Indy at Baltimore – 4.5 (40.5): The Colts started off this season by winning their first nine games. Here they are in the playoffs and they didn’t even get a bye in the first round. My guess is that no one in Indy foresaw that situation in early November. This is a classic match-up. The Colts win with their offense; the Ravens win by holding the opponent to a low score and finding a way to manufacture points. I seriously doubt that either team will ever lead in this game by 10 points or more; every possession will be important. The two biggest differences in the stats for these teams relate to defense. The Colts gave up 360 points this year; the Ravens only gave up 201. The Colts sacked opposing QBs 25 times (less than 2 per game); the Ravens sacked the QB 60 times. The Colts were schizophrenic on the road this year; they traveled well when they beat New England, Denver, the Giants and the Jets away from home; then they stunk out the joint losing road games in Houston and Tennessee. I think this is a venue call in terms of the winner but I see a low scoring game and want the points. I’ll take Indy with the points here. If you prefer the Ravens, shop the line; it’s at 4 in a lot of places.
(Sat) Philly at New Orleans – 6 (47.5): New Orleans is the feelgood story of the year; Philly is the hottest team in the NFC at the moment. There’s no hidden message in there; that’s just the facts, ma’am. Facing a passer who went over 4,000 yards in the regular season, the last thing the Eagles needed was to lose a starting cornerback to injury last week; but it happened. I think this game comes down to rushing defense. If the Eagles can run the way they did against the Giants last weekend – say for 150 yards – and if they can hold the Saints to 100 yards rushing, the Eagles can win the game outright. The first situation is much more likely to happen than the second. Interestingly, the Saints were a better road team this year than they were at home; they went 6-2 on the road and 4-4 at home. However, they didn’t offer to play the game in Philly… Both teams live on the big play. They tied for the league lead in plays longer than 25 yards this year; both teams did that 43 times during the season. I can’t come to a firm conclusion about the matchups here but I do think that the game will be high scoring. I’ll take the game OVER.
(Sun) Seattle at Chicago – 9 (37): Seattle was the shakiest winner on last weekend’s card. Sure, the Seahawks may still have won the game in OT had Tony Romo not lost all of his Ro-Mo-Mentum at one instant in time. But still… The Seahawks have played 17 games this year; they have allowed five more points than they have scored yet they are 10-7. Three of their losses were by double digits the worst coming to the Bears early in the season – with Shaun Alexander out of the line-up to be sure – by a score of 37-6. That won’t happen again this weekend. Alexander is back; and even though he hasn’t been nearly as effective as he was last year, his presence forces the Bears to play the run a lot more seriously than they had to last time these teams met. The Seahawks defense had a chance to win the Cowboys game on their own; they merely needed a defensive stop at the end but couldn’t get the job done. I think that unit gets a breather here because the Bears’ offense is not nearly as good as the Cowboys’ offense was – - unless of course the Bears’ defense treats the offense to great field position all day long and a defensive score or two. I think this game will turn on the “screw-up factor”. If Seattle makes mistakes on offense and gives the ball to the Bears with a short field a couple of times or lets Devin Hester return a kick for a TD, they will lose. If the Bears get the feckless version of Rex Grossman instead of the steady version, he’ll screw up and the Bears will lose. I think the guys who made the line on this game have the Total Score just about right; and in a game that low scoring, I have to take 9 points. But I’m not even tempted to take the Seahawks on the money-line even at +350. I’ll just take Seattle with the points here.
(Sun) New England at San Diego – 5 (46.5): The Pats and Chargers have only one playoff confrontation ever. That was back in the AFL days and the Chargers won that game 51-10. It was the Chargers’ only championship win. Somehow, I don’t think you can draw any conclusions about this weekend from that history. Bill Belichick has a reputation for getting into Peyton Manning’s head with his defensive machinations and late in the season the Pats defense also confabulated rookie QB, Vince Young. Now comes a very balanced Chargers’ offensive unit but with a rookie QB in terms of actual time under center in the NFL. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, the Pats have a QB who has been in a few playoff situations and has a track record of very steady performance under that pressure; Tom Brady just doesn’t give the ball away all that often in important games. People don’t give the Pats all that much credit for creativity on offense but I think they surprised the Jets and the “Mangenius” last weekend when Jabaar Gaffney caught 8 passes and was an offensive focus; in the 16-game regular season, Gaffney caught all of 11 passes – less than three every four games. I think the turning point of the game will be LaDanian Tomlinson; if the Pats can keep him from running amok (say hold him to 120 yards), that will put a big burden on Phillip Rivers to win the game through the air. In that situation, I’d side with the Pats’ defense. And here’s a stat for you. In the 12 playoff games in the Belichick/Brady Era for the Pats, they have never allowed a back to gain 100 yards rushing. But if Tomlinson can light up the Pats’ defense … I’m going to take this game OVER despite the excellent defenses on both teams. Here’s the situation I’m afraid of in terms of that selection. If the Chargers get out to a 13-0 lead, Marty Schottenheimer might revert to his old form in KC and try to sit on that lead and milk the clock – even starting in the second quarter. That will suck all the offensive momentum out of the game and it will go under the total by a lot. I just want someone on the Chargers’ coaching staff with an offensive mind-set to do a Vulcan Mind Meld with Marty just for this one game.
Good luck.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…