Alright boys, week 1 came and went. We saw a pretty strange week: some odd officiating, fluke performances, a few fluke flops, crazy injuries, and some unknown heroes. I went 3 for 6 on my bets, not my best week. But like I said, it was a strange opening week and its kinda got me scratching my head trying to gauge week 2′s lines.
This was a catch.
Week 2 lines look a touch suspect to me. Be careful, there are A TON of points out there. Big lines everywhere. There are only 5 games posted right now with spreads of less than 6 points. Could be a good week for some underdogs plus points? I’m not so sure though. The Eagles are 6 point favorites going to Detroit this week and the Lions will be starting their backup QB Shaun Hill. But the Eagles could be starting their own backup QB in Mike Vick, you could take your chances if you’re a Vick guy. Or even if Kolb does start, did he really look any good? The Bears are 9 point underdogs in Dallas this week. Dallas looked awful in Washington, but this is their home opener and they were just embarrassed on national TV. The Bears make a ton of mistakes, and honestly should have lost last week at home to the Lions. I’d like to think they could beat that 9 points, but Dallas is gonna play angry and could put a hurtin on em. But 9 points worth? Eh. Vikings -6 points hosting the Dolphins? Chargers -7 bringing the Jagz to town? Falcons -7 with the Cardinals in? That’s a lot of points out there. Any one of those could be covered, it just scares me away since its so early in the year and a lot of teams just didn’t show me anything last week.
There are a couple lines I do like though. Colts/Giants game started at Colts -5.5, it quickly jumped to 6 points and I still love it. The Colts were beaten pretty convincingly by the Texans last week, but not this Sunday. Peyton torched the Texans D, and Foster ran wild on the Colts D. Everyone knows the Colts are susceptible to the run, but obviously they game planned for the pass with the high flying Texans. The Giants used to be a premiere rushing team, so you may think that they can beat down the Colts but you’re wrong. There isn’t really a huge play threat in that Giants backfield, and Eli Manning to Steve Smith isn’t exactly Schaub to Johnson. The Colts will expect a ground attack with some average passing, but should be able to play well enough on defense to stay in this one. The real difference here is that Giants D. Again, the Giants used to boast a premiere Defense, but those days are gone, they can be blasted. And if anyone’s gonna do it, its Peyton. I look to see the Colts flying high in their home opener against Little Brother and win this one by more than 1 TD. Colts-6 is a go.
Texans -3 @ Wasington. I think this is pretty self explanatory. The Texans are coming off a huge win against a top team where they won pretty convincingly. They’re riding high, spirits are good. The Redskins came out of that Dallas game with a somewhat unimpressive victory. I expect the Texans to get back to Texans-style football and air it out a bit. As long as the Texans don’t act like the job is done since they won a single Colts game, they should be able to win this game by more than 1 score.
The Baltimore Ravens delivered some punishing hits this week, the biggest may have went to the ego of Jets coach, Rex Ryan. With that win the Ravens swagger level is at 100%. They only managed 10 points, but that was against the league’s top defense. Baltimore is heading to Cincinnati where they are 2 point favorites. I like this bet. The ravens can put up points, they have a top running game and deep ball potential. Their defense played like the Ravens D of old last week and I expect that to carry over into this game as well. The Bengals are a good team who sometimes have a hard time just getting it together, and I think its gonna have to wait till next week for them to start. This Bengals team has talent, and could beat most teams any given week, but the Ravens are favorites in that division and deserve to be favorites in this game. I’d be really surprised if Baltimore can’t cover this 2 points. And also, I don’t mess with total points too often, but its at 40 for this one. I think these teams are very capable of putting up 20+ on each other. I’m not betting it, just putting that out there.
Now I’m gonna talk about “Teaser Bets”. I literally have never heard of this before today(thanks Mike Davis) and I’m pretty embarrassed by that. Teasers seem to be the highest chance to win, with a decent payout. Its pretty genius. You make a parlay type bet, but you kind of buy points from the house. Its a bit hard to explain but I STRONGLY suggest you go to your gambling site of choice and mess around with some of these Teasers. I’ll try to give some examples…
Lets go with the Packers, Ravens, Eagles and Chargers… The actual lines on those are Packers-14, Ravens- 2, Eagles-6, Chargers-7. Now plug that in as a Teaser. We’ve got a Parlay style bet, but with WAY smaller spreads. At a 3/1 payout you take 6 points off of each spread. So now you’ve got a parlay going with Packers-8, Ravens+4, Eagles at a “pick em”, and Chargers-1, and a $10 wager pays out $30. Another, original lines- Texans-3, Colts-6, Saints-6. Put that in a Teaser and you’ve got Texans+3, and both the Colts and Saints games at a “pick em”. Only 3 teams, pretty likely to cover those odds, but a $10 wager pays out an $18 payoff. Another? Lets go Steelers +5.5, Vikings -6, Seahawks +3.5, and Patriots -3. Pop that into your Teaser, you’re getting the Steelers at +11.5, Vikings at a “pick em”, Seahawks +9.5, and Patriots +3. And again a $10 wager pays off $30. You can set your Teaser to give you from 6 extra points up to 13 points, but obviously the more points you take the lower your payoff. Teasers don’t have the monster payoffs that a straight parlay does, but its also not a sucker bet like a parlay is. Small Teasers(3-4 games), with the right teams look like a sure-fire way to pad your betting account.
