Jerry Jones is such an impressive football wizard, such a gridiron genius, that he stars as the hero in his own Pepsi Max commercial. You’ve seen it. He gallantly sweeps in to rescue his bumbling players and coaches, snapping the headset off the sleepy offensive coordinator to right the listing ship.

This truly may be how Jones sees himself. Though he made his money elsewhere, he is, in fact, the general manager of the Cowboys, and has the final say in all of the football decisions of the Cowboys.

People speak highly of Jones’ football acumen. In criticizing Redskins owner Dan Snyder, Steve Czaban recently compared Snyder unfavorably to Jones, referring to the Cowboys owner as “an aggressive owner who isn’t clueless about football like Snyder.”

And Jones speaks highly of his own football acumen as well. Jones’s bio on the Cowboy’s website begins, “In one of the most dramatic eras of ownership in professional sports, Jerry Jones’s stewardship of the Dallas Cowboys has brought unprecedented results and success to one of the world’s most popular sports entities.”

Just imagine how flowery the language would be had the Cowboys won a playoff game in the past decade.

Bob Kraft is less involved in the football decisions of his team. Kraft started his ownership of the Patriots in hands-on fashion, accompanying his scouts to college campuses to work out players and taking sides in personnel issues. Quickly, however, he realized that his skill sets were in business and marketing. He hired good people and got out of the way.

Are these divergent approaches by these wealthy, successful, high-achieving owners part of the reason that since the Cowboys last prevailed in a playoff game the Patriots have won 17 postseason contests?

That’s right, the Cowboys last playoff win was on December 28, 1996. Since that date, the Patriots have won 17 playoff games, while the Cowboys have won none.

Jerry Jones has enjoyed tremendous success as the Cowboys GM, but it was with Jimmy Johnson’s players. And that success was over a decade ago.

Still, Jones and his Pepsi buddies have no problem putting him out there in the role of the take-charge football guru. It is unlikely that Jones would have had much patience for a general manager other than himself who led the franchise through an 11-year playoff drought. Yet you rarely hear Jones called out for the lack of success in Big D.

Just imagine how hard Jones will be pushing his public persona as a football sage if the Cowboys win a playoff game or two some season soon.

The national media that continues to grant Jones the GM a free pass could use a reality check. Maybe someone ought to take away their microphones and notebooks and hand them a Pepsi Max.

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I have a couple of late-breaking radio appearances this afternoon that you can listen to if you have absolutely nothing better to do.

First there will be about a short spot with John Kelly in Las Vegas at 5:15PM Eastern Time which you can listen to here. That program is broadcast on KENO 1460AM in Vegas and ESPN 630AM in Reno.

Then I’ll be on with NFL Hall of Famer John Riggins at 6:05 PM EST. Listen here. Or you can always listen the old fashioned way on 94.3FM, 92.7FM, and 730AM in DC, Virginia, and Maryland.

Sorry for the late notice, but these were both just arranged this afternoon.

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The Atlanta Hawks shot 35 for 102 last night in their 125-92 loss to the Suns. You don’t see many teams shoot the ball 100 times in regulation, and while I don’t have the database to check this out, shooting over 100 times yet score fewer than 100 points is certainly unique. 24 offensive rebounds by Atlanta and 19 blocked shots by the Phoenix defense helped fuel the statistical anomaly.

I was wondering how often teams shoot the ball more than 100 times in a game and was stunned to discover that the 1959-1960 Boston Celtics averaged over 119 field goal attempts per game. A lot of scoring and field goal records are still held by teams in the 1959-1962 time frame. I do a lot of work with pace and efficiency numbers in my basketball handicapping, and I’d love to see how some of the pace and efficiency stats from that run ‘n gun NBA era compare to those of today.

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Sports books have a healthy hold on prop bets for the Super Bowl. And the biggest money makers for the books are the ones offering the most choices.

Player vs. player, over/under, and yes/no prop bets offer just two outcomes. They usually require the bettor to lay the equivalent of $1.10 or $1.15 to win a dollar. And while I’d never consider playing at a sports book that required you to lay -115 on sides and totals, with hundreds of unique yes/no or over/under props that can offer a bettor an edge, sports books making bettors lay -115 instead of -110 is acceptable.

These prices are often adjusted to have a money-line favorite or an underdog. For example, a prop may be -150 to the over and +120 to the under. That 30-cent difference between the underdog and favorite makes it roughly equivalent to a bet that requires you to lay -115 on either side. The -150/+120 is actually slightly more advantageous to the player than -115 on either side, but we’ll go into that some other time. These yes/no or over/under propositions at the equivalent of -115 or less are bets that can offer an edge.

For example, a look at the fresh offerings of a sports book that was very slow to post Super Bowl props shows an opportunity to bet New York Giants back Brandon Jacobs over or under 12.5 receiving yards. The bettor must lay -1.15 to win a dollar whether they think Jacobs will go over or under those 12.5 receiving yards. Laying $1.15 to win a buck, the bettor has to win 53.48% of the time to break even. That is a reasonable offering from a sports book, and if the bettor’s understanding of football is better than the linemaker’s, money can be won on those kind of propositions.

Multiple-choice props are far worse. The same sports book that has the Brandon Jacobs receiving yards bet has a prop on which quarter will see the most total points scored. The first quarter is +230 (2.3 to 1), which expressed as a probability suggests a 30.3% chance of happening. The second quarter is +125, suggesting a 44.4% chance. The third quarter is +215, suggesting a 31.7% chance. The fourth quarter is +180, which corresponds to a 35.7% chance.

The four possible offerings in to the “highest scoring quarter prop” have probabilities that add up to 142.1%. Therefore, the house edge on this prop is 42.1%, as opposed to a theoretical house edge of less than 5% on wagers at -110 and a house edge of about 7% on those at -115.

These theoretical edges can be overcome in sports betting with a superior opinion. But nearly every multiple choice prop is much harder to beat than the yes/no, over/under, or player vs. player props. Let others analyze multiple-choice offerings such as who is going to score the first touchdown. Focus most of your Super Bowl efforts on props offering just two potential outcomes.

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“Can you believe these junkies are betting on the coin toss?” is a comment you’ll often hear from media types before the Super Bowl. But in a country where millions of people buy lottery tickets every day, the Super Bowl coin toss is a great bet in comparison.

If you’re laying -110 on either heads or tails, you’re bucking a house edge of less than 5%, meaning the sports book offering the bet expects to win less than 5 cents on the dollar. Compare that to a lottery that immediately extracts 50 cents on every dollar and you’ll see what a far superior bet the Super Bowl coin toss is.

I agree that anyone who bets the coin toss is an action-craving idiot. But what does that make lottery players who play a game with a takeout that is ten times greater? Yet the same media outlets so critical of the coin toss bet promote the lottery incessantly via treating the results and winners as news items.

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Alan Woods, who was among the first to win big money handicapping and wagering on horse racing via sophisticated computer-aided methods, has died in Hong Kong. He was 62.

Woods commandeered a successful gambling operation that allowed him to build a half-billion dollar fortune. This lengthy article, which has a bit of age on it (I first read it a couple of years ago), gives some interesting details about how he managed to extract so much money out of the massive wagering pools in Hong Kong, as well as the lifestyle one lives when he wins a few hundred million at the races.

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Earlier this week I emailed my customers with a NFL prop that had my eyes popping out of my head. I bet “longest punt in the game over 42.5 yards” at a sports book that sounds very much like the nickname for someone named Christopher. This was a great bet, as the Giants punter had a kick of 43 yards or longer in every regular season game before falling victim to the elements in Green Bay. The Patriots punter, after a slow first four games of the season, had only one game where he punted more than once and didn’t have a punt of 43 yards or longer.

I placed the wager, sent the email, and thought, “well, that line will get knocked into shape pretty quickly.”

And it was. Ten minutes later over 42.5 (-115) was still the price, but it quickly went to over 42.5 (-145), then 45.5 minus money, then 46.5 minus money, and by the end of the day was pretty close to where it is now, which is over 49.5 (-210).

Some customers who were online at the time caught the price, or one of the early adjustments. But later in the day I received a number of emails that gently told me that I was looking at the wrong prop, that what I was looking for was the over/under on the first punt. The assumption that I didn’t know what I was doing indicates the greatest value in Super Bowl proposition wagering.

Obviously this price was a rare offering of tremendous value by the sports book. With hundreds of props to put up, a faulty memory as to what the price was last year or outright misjudgment occurs at every sports book. The management isn’t perfect, and the linemakers are far from infallible. And betting into a laughably weak opening line is where the greatest value in Super Bowl props exists.

Now that’s not to suggest that there won’t be value for someone who can isolate a matchup advantage, or who can figure out what a portion of the game plan will be for either team, or who gets first report of an injury that occurs in practice. But the best bets you ever make on Super Bowl props come from being the first to pounce on weaknesses.

Every year I hear from people holding tremendous bets as a result of sitting in a Vegas sports book or logging onto an online book as new proposition wagers are offered. Being quick and spotting the weaknesses in the hundreds of lines that are offered presents a tremendous edge to those who are ready.

If you can’t be first internationally, maybe you can be smart locally. Those who bet with local bookies should pay strict attention to the propositions offered from the guy who they at the local bar. These locals are often unsophisticated and many have just entered or returned to the business due to the opportunity created by legislation by the US government that made things more difficult for online sports books to operate. They may say, “ahh, my guys won’t understand that they have to lay -145 on this, I’ll just make it -115 both ways.” This provides solid wagers and opportunities for arbitrage. Take some time and compare what you’re offered locally with what is offered at Vegas or online sports books.

Mistakes will be made in the next nine days and those who put themselves in a position to take advantage of those mistakes have an excellent chance to profit.

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Though the forecast has sounded less windy in the past day or two, Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe reports the following from the press box….this has applications for kicking, passing, various totals, and all kinds of props as well….

“Kicker Stephen Gostkowski just completed his pre-game warmups and the issue will be going to the open end of the stadium (lighthouse side).

Gostkowski cut the warmup short at 43 yards, which is something to keep in mind regarding the field position game today. The ball seemed to carry right to left when kicked to that side.

Gostkowski’s warmup included 50-yard kicks to the closed end of the stadium, and he made them.

Chargers kicker Nate Kaeding had a difficult warmup.”

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Foxborough looks to be warmer and less windy than originally projected. The temperature is expected to be 25 degrees at game time and winds in the 10-15 MPH range.

Green Bay still projects to have single digit temperatures and winds from 15 MPH.

Of course this could all change rapidly this weekend. The Packers were told in pregame warmups last weekend that the snow was going to break by kickoff, which obviously didn’t happen.

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I did a spot this week with the ABC affiliate in Providence via telephone. You can watch it here. The spot just skimmed the surface and my answer to the question on wagering volume on the Chargers/Patriots game was a huge (and doubtlessly high) guesstimate. But it is nice to see local markets taking an interest in sports betting. Incidentally, my final comment is a tip of the hat to Providence’s mobbed-up past.

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