Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The NFL Blog: 2012 Week 15 Betting Lines



Last Week: Vs. Spread: (5-10-1); Straight Up: (10-6)
Season: Vs. Spread: (103-99-6); Straight Up: (134-73-1)

Week 14 Review: I usually wouldn’t call 5-10-1 ATS a disaster, but it sure feels that way right now, and for the second week in a row I feel compelled to give a more lengthy recap of things than usual. 

This was a crazy week in the NFL, and on a personal level, this was without question my least favorite week of the season. For starters, I was under the weather for a few days last week, including Thursday, and the Denver-Oakland Thursday night game was one of the few NFL games this season that I failed to watch even 1 play of. I did not handle the first Saturday without college football (excluding Army-Navy and the various non-FBS playoff games) very well either. By the time 1:00 PM rolled around on Sunday I was more than ready for some football. 

Unfortunately, my team was dominated for the first 40 minutes of play, falling behind 23-0 to a 3-9 team that was coming off of a loss to the Chiefs. My team hadn’t played in 10 days, and they only spent about 5 minutes of the first half of Sunday’s game on offense. The Falcons finally got rolling late in the 3rd quarter but it was too little too late. It might have been enough had they not gotten totally fucked by Ed Hochuli on back-to-back challenge reviews. 

Of course it was all made worse by the fact that the Panthers had talked shit the entire week leading up to the game, as well as the fact that Cam Newton—who accounted for essentially 100% of Carolina’s offense—danced and strutted like a fucking dick clown after every play. Nothing compares to seeing your team get pounded by a team that they ought to be pounding, but this actually touched me on another level. I’ll explain…

I play pretty much every type of “fantasy” sport game available on the internet (well, at least on ESPN.com). However, I compete against total strangers in all but one league. I play in a fantasy football league with 11 friends and acquaintances that is now in its 7th year of existence. Going into this season, my team was the only one that had yet to make the playoffs at least once in 6 previous seasons (6 teams make it per year). This year I finally got lucky and made it into the playoffs at the #6 seed. In our league, playoff matchups are only 1 week, not the standard 2 weeks per playoff round. This week was the first week of the playoffs. I lost. I lost because I started Andrew Luck over (you guessed it) Cam Newton. I lost by 29.1 points; had I started Newton I would have won by 29.4 points. 

So that sucked. Meanwhile, as I watched my team blow an opportunity to take a major step towards wrapping up the #1 seed in the NFC, there were 9 other games going on. I wasn’t able to watch much of these games, as I was glued to my team’s game until the final 5 minutes or so when it was out of reach. Of course my team’s game lingered on and on after the outcome had been decided. That torturous scene played out on one screen, and on the other screen I got to experience flashbacks of my awful performance picking games the week before. Once again I was in a deep hole at the end of the early session on Sunday. 

This time I stood at 3-8 ATS with 5 games to go. I began to cheer up a little, as the late games were going in my favor. Or at least I thought they were, until I realized that I had picked New Orleans to beat the spread against the Giants. I ended up going 2-1 in those late games, meaning my chances for a .500 record were gone. 

I actually rooted for the Lions during Sunday night’s game because I wanted at least 1 of the teams chasing my team in the standings to lose. When the Packers went up 10 late I switched, as I figured that the Packers weren’t going to lose but at least I would get the pick right. Then the Lions decided to kick a FG with less than 20 seconds to play which made it a push. I honestly didn’t care anymore by the time Monday’s game arrived. I lost that one too, having stupidly picked Houston to beat the spread. 

Thus, I ended the week with a 5-10-1 record. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I wouldn’t normally call that a “disaster.” I set out to write about how my cushion was almost entirely gone, as I was just 8 games over .500 ATS for the year. I went back through my weekly results because it felt like I was in a major slump. I ended up going all the way back to the first few weeks of the year, when I got off to that great start. Then I noticed something which made my 5-10-1 week ATS feel like a disaster after all. 

Somehow, though I go through careful steps each week to avoid making any mistakes, in my week 3 betting lines entry I had made an error in my addition. After going 11-5 in week 1, I went 6-8-2 in week 2, but instead of adding 6 and 11 to get 17, I added 8 and 11 to get 19. I added 6 and 5 to get 11 instead of adding 5 and 8 to get 13. I had calculated my record after 2 weeks as 19-11-2, but it should have been 17-13-2. 

I always use my previous blog entry to come up with my new overall record after the conclusion of each week, so any mistake I make is going to be repeated until I figure it out. This isn’t the first time I’ve made mistakes, but in the past I’ve always discovered the errors after the end of the season when I go back and check everything. 

In a way, I’m glad I found the error now rather than after the year. But at the same time, it was depressing to realize that (a) I had made a mistake and (b) this error was not “in my favor.” I realized that my “cushion” had never been as fat as I thought, and that in reality, I was just 4 games over .500 for the season. Not only am I in more serious danger of falling below .500 for the first time all year, I must now accept that I’ve basically “flipped a coin” to this point. Now we all know that betting against the spread is coin flipping, but when you are more than 10 games over .500 it’s kind of fun to pretend that you are “doing well this season.”

I’ve lost the ability to believe in that illusion. I’m 8 games under .500 over the last 2 weeks and I’ve been over .500 ATS in just 1 of the last 5 weeks. I haven’t been more than 2 games over .500 ATS in any of the last 7 weeks. I’ve had a bucket of cold water thrown on my season. I’ve suddenly woken up and realized that I’m actually not “doing well this season.” 

And I never was.  

 

Week 15 Preview: I’m not all that confident about this week’s games (I’ll now wait for you imaginary readers to stop laughing……….and there it is). 

The only good news this week is that the NFL has spread out the Sunday schedule in a more reasonable manner. There are 16 games (no byes of course) this week, and on Sunday there will be 8 early games and 5 late games. This will be a change of pace for the league, which has been neglecting the 4:00 PM slate like one of Roger Goodell’s ugly ginger kids all season. 

But seriously: how can anyone really be that confident picking games this week? 

Philly won last week, while Cincinnati choked against Dallas, but are you really going to take the Eagles to win 2 straight? 

The Bears look dead, but are they all the way dead? 

The Falcons are looking real shaky, but they’re at home. 

Tampa has lost 3 straight but so have the Saints. 

What if RGIII can’t go for Washington? (And we probably won’t know until after the game is over whether or not he can go so the line probably won’t be posted until Christmas Eve). The Browns have won 3 straight themselves. 

Denver keeps on winning, while the Ravens just fired their offensive coordinator, but the game’s in Baltimore and the Ravens need the game more. 

The Colts keep pulling out wins in close games and they haven’t played well on the road, but the Texans just got waxed by 28 and are on a short week. 

The Cardinals have lost 9 straight and they lost 58-0 last week. But the Lions have lost 5 in a row. More importantly, this is the NFL, which means you don’t know. You don’t fucking know. The 2008 Cardinals lost by 28 in week 13; by 21 in week 15; and by 40 in week 16. And then a few weeks later they were a play away from winning the mother fucking Super Bowl! Which, by the way, how the fuck did that ever happen? 

The Panthers got a big win last week but so did the Chargers. 

Seattle won 58-0 but they’re a different team on the road. 

The Steelers suffered a horrible defeat last week, while the Cowboys got their biggest win of the year, but who do you trust more (or less)? 

The Chiefs are awful; the Raiders are awful. 

The Patriots are rolling but can they win back-to-back primetime games over Super Bowl contenders? 

And then there are the Jax-Miami and NYJ-Tennessee games, and those are NFL games too, which means it’ll be difficult to predict ATS. 

That’s pretty much how I feel about this week. If I have another bad week I’ll be at .500 or maybe even below .500 for the first time all season. 

However…

…I could have a really good week. 

It’s just flipping a coin, right? And I’m due for a good week…

…Or, wait, that’s the whole “gambler’s fallacy” thing isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve hit “tails” in a row, it’s still 50-50 that I’ll hit tails again this week, isn’t that how it goes? I think that’s right…

…But I like my version better.  

I’m fucking due. 

Period.


 


Thursday Night’s Game


Cincinnati (-3) @ Philadelphia
Pick: Bengals cover


Sunday’s Early Games


Green Bay (-3) @ Chicago
Pick: Packers cover


New York Giants (+1) @ Atlanta
Pick: Giants pull off the upset


Tampa Bay (+3) @ New Orleans
Pick: Saints cover


Minnesota (+3) @ St. Louis
Pick: Rams cover


Washington (-2.5) @ Cleveland
Pick: Skins cover


Jacksonville (+7) @ Miami
Pick: Dolphins cover


Denver (-3) @ Baltimore
Pick: Broncos cover


Indianapolis (+9.5) @ Houston
Pick: Texans win but Colts beat the spread


Sunday’s Late Games 


Detroit (-5.5) @ Arizona
Pick: Lions cover


Carolina (+3) @ San Diego
Pick: Chargers cover


Seattle (-5) @ Buffalo 
Pick: Seahawks win but Bills beat the spread


Pittsburgh (PK) @ Dallas
Pick: Steelers win


Kansas City (+2.5) @ Oakland
Pick: Raiders cover



Sunday Night’s Game


San Francisco (+3) @ New England 
Pick: Patriots cover



Monday Night’s Game


New York Jets (+1) @ Tennessee  
Pick: Jets pull off the upset

















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