Doubt there’s much “rookie QB vs rookie QB” history in the NFL, but Josh Freeman’s Tampa Bay Bucs take on Mark Sanchez’s New York Jets this week.   So do you play the under due to conservative game plans given to these inexperienced signal callers?  Or will they make mistakes that provide “silver platter” scoring opportunities to their opponents?

San Diego bettors laying 13 or so had to be confident when the Chargers started the 4th quarter with a 2nd and 4 on the Cleveland 34 and a 27-7 lead.  The Chargers had nearly a 200 yard edge in total yardage at the time as well. But the Bolts relaxed with the game in hand and Brady Quinn looked like a superstar to earn the Browns the cover.  Seems to be the kind of thing that happens with some frequency with big road favorites in the NFL.  

Tom Brady’s getting some heat in the media for his uneven performances, but even with a pair of interceptions, when you throw for 352 yards on only 29 passes, it’s not all on you.   The Patriots generated little pass rush in Miami on Sunday and Chad Henne (Chad Henne!) kept attacking the same spots on the field.  It was time to retool New England’s aging defense and they’ve got some guys learning on the job right now.   

Is being inside opponent’s territory nine times yet not scoring a TD an NFL record?  If so, the Rams made a little history in their loss at the Bears. The Rams play hard, their special teams and defense did some good things Sunday, but oooooh, that offense.  St. Louis is inept on the offensive line, beat up at the receiver position, have Kyle Boller as quarterback, and Steven Jackson has lost a step at running back.   Boller had 113 yards on 32 attempts, for 3.5 yards per pass attempt with an interception.  Down 8 inside of 4 minutes, the Rams had the ball on their own 45 and threatened to enter Bears territory for the 10th time all game, but Boller threw his interception on the first play of that drive, effectively ending the ballgame.  St. Louis dominated the punting game, young Welker-esque Texas Tech product Danny Amendola averaged 12 yards per punt return while punter Donnie Jones averaged 45.3 yards per punt and pinned the Bears inside their 20 with 6 of his 7 punts.   That punting helped lead to a rare “no TD but pointspread cover” for an NFL team.

Delaware is introducing some new parlay card options, including a fresh one each Monday night that allows bettors to parlay Monday night football with the next week’s games.  With the requirement of three-games or more, bettors had no reason to check out Monday night football in the First State’s racinos that host the sports betting.  The reason for mentioning the new offerings centers around something called the “Delaware Favorites” card, which keys on the Eagles, Ravens, and Redskins and let’s bettors pick from games over the next three weeks.   Seems like there might be some value there if you like a team to improve or tank, as I’m unaware of other vehicles that allow you to parlay the same teams in mulitple weeks like this.

Have a feeling that NFL bettors who focus on the desperate teams aren’t having productive years.  The 49ers, Falcons, Steelers and Bengals all failed to the spread in those roles Sunday.  The Texans have now dropped three straight in “desperate” situations, and owner Bob McNair hasn’t had the expression of a guy happy with his head coach in recent weeks.  With all the mediocrity in the wild card chase, these situations continue to come up week after week.  

Heading into the Monday Night game in Green Bay, underdogs had enjoyed a 10-5 week against the pointspread in the NFL.   But that’s a result of some games being judged as more-or-less even going to the small dog, as 1-point favorites Houston, San Francisco, and Dallas all failed.  So it lacked the feel of a big underdog week.  

Buffalo is far from the most affluent market in the NFL, so the decision to play a home game each year in Toronto is understandable.  But it seems odd that the Bills would give up home games against divisional rivals like the Jets and (last year) the Dolphins.  It also seems odd that they would give up the advantage of a Thursday night home game, which is a simply awful scheduling situation for the visitor.  The Jets Thursday night win featured a pretty unique statistical oddity of both teams averaging more per run attempt than they did per pass attempt.  The Jets went for 5.8 yards per rush and 4.8 yards per pass.  The Bills ran for 5.1 yards per rush attempt but an anemic 3.1 yards per pass attempt.

Even in big road years, which this has become in the NFL, favorites usually do pretty well in the concluding quarter of the season against the pointspread.   Not that you should be playing every home team, but just something to keep in mind.  

NFL parlay betting has been a qualified success in Delaware, with the state taking in over $800,000 thus far, which is in excess of the $500,000 projected.   But the casino operator who built a large sportsbook based on the expectation of lucrative single game betting is not recouping the hefty investment made.  The NFL team up the road, the Philadelphia Eagles, takes on the Atlanta Falcons Sunday.  We’ve written a lot about how a team’s mental state means a lot down the stretch in the NFL, but injuries matter, as well.  Both of these teams are beat up, with the Falcons missing QB Matt Ryan.  Amazingly, Atlanta’s only starter last season to miss any time with injury was then-rookie offensive tackle Sam Baker.   This season the team has suffered 11 major injuries.  If you’re looking for a difference between this season and last, there it is for you.   And with the lengthy injury lists all over the league, that proposed 18-game schedule looks pretty daunting this time of year, doesn’t it?

Our newsletter, the Max, is 50-30 against the spread over the last several weeks.  The rest of the season, including every bowl game and NFL playoff contest fully analyzed, is only $79.   Call 770-649-1078 to subscribe.

The Saints and Colts are undefeated in two very different ways.   The Saints have scored 24 points or more in every single game thus far this season.  After their brutal 17-15 win over Baltimore, the Colts have now won four games where they scored 20 or less.   The Saints and Colts were a combined 0-6 to the pointspread in the month of November before both covered on Sunday.  Throw in Denver and the three teams that were undefeated on November 1st are now 2-10 against the spread since then.

Nice effort by the Redskins on the road.  As we first wrote about when the Broncos moved into their new building and spoke of a diminished home field advantage in the middle of the 2001 season, these big new buildings don’t always offer a ton of home field edge.  They offer comfort instead of intimidation, and road teams have done pretty well against the pointspread.   The Cowboys are 4-1 straight up at home, and 3-2 against the spread, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if they underperform in Jerry’s Palace as so many other clubs have.  No surprise that discounting pushes, road teams are 86-70 against the spread by one count.

Cowboy CB Terence Newman shoved assistant coach Dave Campo on the bench Sunday, but it doesn’t seem to be a big deal in Cowboy land.  And the issue certainly wasn’t the defense on Sunday.   Statistically the Cowboys offense wasn’t dreadful, gaining 305 yards in 60 snaps.  But you would think this team would score in the first 57 minutes of a game, which it has failed to do in each of the past two weeks, almost by accident. 

The Seahawks gained 4 yards on 13 rushing attempts at Minnesota on Saturday.   And remember, that in the NFL sack yardage is not counted against the rushing yardage. Good thing they proactively locked up that Jim Mora to a deal as an assistant before anybody else could get to him, huh?  Looking at Mora and Cleveland’s Eric Mangini, it probably is not best to immediately scoop up the young coach who has already failed as a head man.  Let ’em get some seasoning back in them. 

If Nevada sports betting is really only down 10% in volume, they should be counting their blessings.  Casino players I know say that the offers to entice them out to the desert are staggering.   People out there the weekend of the Pacquiao/Cotto fight told me that the town was comparatively all but empty. Despite the downturn, expect New Jersey and Delaware to continue to push for full-scale sports betting, as those states remain hungry for revenue.

If someone offered you an over/under total of 33.5 on the Browns/Lions first quarter with no limit, how much would you have bet on the under? Tough push for Packer bettors.  Green Bay outgained San Francisco by 200 yards, earned 26 first downs to only 11 for the Niners, led 30-10 with 11 minutes left, yet only won 30-24 laying 6.  Some smart shoppers could’ve turned it into a win with -5.5, available in spots on Sunday.

I was fortunate enough to go 4-0 in the NFL for the second consecutive week with my Strategic Sports Publishing handicapping service.  In both weeks I went 3-0 with sides and hit a teaser, for a combined 8-0 mark the past two weeks.  This past weekend also had a 4-2 college football week.  If you’re interested in the rest of the football season and/or college and NBA basketball you can call 770-649-1078 for rates and details.

Thanks for reading this far.  Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

It was a good weekend for the underdogs in the NFL, meaning a good Sunday for online sportsbooks, as well as Vegas and Delaware.  But favorites are still slightly profitable after juice just betting them blindly.  But it was another bad week for competitive football.  There just haven’t been a lot of close NFL games.  Even when the dogs cover, they’re not dramatic games.   This weekend underdogs like the Vikings won by 12, the Panthers won by 13, and the Eagles cruised by 23.  Only 46 of 116 games this season have been decided by 7 points or less.   With over 60% of the games being decided by more than a TD, there’s far less drama in our lives on Sunday afternoons.

The Bills, called by one headline entering Sunday’s games the “Surging Bills”, had their two-game winning streak broken by the Texans on Sunday.   But the only they had done positively in their previous two games was cause turnovers.  The Bills have now been outgained 1278-667 in their last three games.  They’d been living on borrowed time and it caught up with them against Houston.   The Texans played a price, however.  Tight end Owen Daniels is out for the season with a torn ACL suffered in the second quarter. 

It is conceivable that a team has scored 30 points with only 104 yards of total offense at some point in the history of the NFL, but it’s possible that the Dolphins broke new ground on Sunday.  When a TD put Miami up 30-19 with 8:48 to go, coach Tony Sparano elected to go for 2 to make it a 13-point lead instead of 12.   Putting it at 12 eliminates a TD, two point conversion, and field goal tying you up.   Instead of admitting a boneheaded mistake, Sparano offered a non-explanation explanation that didn’t make an ounce of sense.   You have to figure that Bill Parcells, a master of in-game strategy, has a little talk about the issue with his underling this week.

This week’s Monday Night game between the Steelers and Broncos in Denver had an opening total of 38.5.   Every other game opened with a total in the 40’s or 50’s.   Looking at different metrics involving scoring, there’s not a huge explosion in scoring this season, with the exception of the Saints pushing 40 points per game.  There just aren’t any low scoring vs. low scoring matchups this week.

Nearly 68% of the offensive production in one game this weekend took place on the ground. The Jaguars/Titans game had 770 yards of total offense with 522 of those yards earned on running plays.    Maurice Jones-Drew had 80 and 79 yard TD runs for the Jags before Chris Johnson responded with 52 and 89 yard TD runs.   The 89 yard TD run was a backbreaker, breaking open the game on the first play of the fourth quarter.  It’s amazing how many of these long runs occur after a tackle is missed in the backfield.  The natural inclination of the defender is to ease up when they see a play being made and that is frequently their downfall. 

It’s valuable to know what bad teams will be trying down the stretch.   If the coaching staff looks on the way out things can get dicey, so keep an eye on the Raiders, Browns, and Bucs.  Other bad teams are building for the future with potentially good coaches, like the Lions and Rams, and effort is more likely.  Other teams you just don’t know.   Jim Mora doesn’t appear to trust his 2-5 team down the stretch, and is letting his charges know that positions are up for grabs.   Mora, the ultimate player’s coach (read: enabler) in Atlanta, lost his jobs after the Falcons went 2-7 both straight up and against the spread to close the 2006 season.

There’s a lot of talk about the dominance of favorites and the damage being done to the (poor) sportsbooks.  We’ll take a hard look at that later this week.   Thanks for reading this today.

by Kevin O’Neill

After a series of blowouts by superior teams on Sunday, favorite bettors are smiling broadly.  By one count, when you discount pushes, the chalk is now 56-44 against the spread (you can figure out that winning percentage yourself, can’t you?) on the season, which is a pretty hefty edge.   Favorites were 9-3-1 this week (though the Texans push became a loss on Sunday at many books that moved from 3 to 3.5).  It’ll be interesting to see the results of Delaware’s parlay card operation from this past week, and what it would have been instead had the Redskins upset the nearby Eagles applecart on Monday night instead.

The Sunday blowouts all involved both superior play and a turnover edge.   The Chargers, Colts, Bengals, Packers, Patriots, and Jets all won by 28 points or more, all outgained their opponent by at least 1.1 yards per play, had a combined 66 more first downs than their opponents, and had a combined 18-2 turnover edge.   The Patriots had the 2 turnovers, no other blowout winner had a single one.  Sometimes superior teams lose due to turnovers and bad breaks, but that wasn’t the case on Sunday. 

Cluster of Favorites Smashes Bookies, Locals Hurt Worse:  Las Vegas bookmakers got popped pretty good Sunday, as when a cluster of favorites cover, bookies get hurt by parlays.  And it’s probably even worse for all the locals that the US has invited back into the pool by hassling offshore and online sportsbooks a couple of years ago.  Offshore sportsbooks, as well as most Vegas shops, get some buyback on inflated lines by big bettors who are looking for extra points.  A lot of locals get no such buyback and are completely dependent on a large public favorite day not happening. 

Games “Were What We Thought They Were”: There’s usually a number of “false result” games in the NFL, but that wasn’t the case in Sunday’s day of dominance.   The Bills gained only 167 yards against the Panthers on a puny 3.1 yards per play, but a 4-0 turnover edge carried the day for them.   The Steelers/Vikings game was a lot lower scoring than the 27-17 final score, as the Steelers 14-7 edge in the final quarter was two long defensive returns by Pittsburgh sandwiched around a Percy Harving kickoff return for the Vikes.   But other than those two, the games pretty much played out as the scores suggested.

NFL Halftime Bettors Take Note:  Two Sunday nights ago, the Falcons scored a TD in the last ten seconds of the first half, and continued that momentum into the second half.   On Sunday the Falcons gave up a TD in the last ten seconds of the half to Dallas (after three different rushers had shots at Tony Romo), setting the stage for a big second half run by the Cowboys.  And the effect of the Saints last second TD in the second quarter at Miami was obvious.  No doubt some second half betting specialists are way ahead on this one, but that last second (not just last minute, but last second) TD in the NFL really seems to carry into the second half, doesn’t it? 

London Calling: Student of all things leadership, Bill Belichick found my favorite London tourist spot on the Patriots working vacation this past weekend.  The most entertaining news item from the trip was the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy reporting on the coverage of Tom Brady in the London press.  The cash-strapped Globe sent their columnist overseas and got a column that could have been done by an intern with a web connection.   

More Coverage, Less In Person: While there is an avalanche of coverage of the NFL from an ever-widening array of sources, less of it is in person.   The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has their columnists in heavy blogging mode, offering a multiple of the content they once did, but they sent only a single staffer, the Falcons beat reporter, to a recent Falcons game in San Francisco.  Fewer on-site reporters, more bloggers.   I spend a lot of time looking for information, and have rarely been burned by major newspaper staffers reporting something inaccurately.   But I’ve found a lot of errors by bloggers and other online types.   Certainly best to double-check the information you uncover for accuracy, particularly when the source isn’t reporting something first hand.

Good news about NFL betting in Delaware. Bettors aren’t just saddled with poor paying parlay cards. If they go up to the counter and ask, they can actually get legit parlay odds as well.

Not that you’d find this out in most of the media coverage. The articles on the Delaware offerings there just mention that three-team parlay cards pay 5.5 to 1 (expressed as 6.5 for 1 to make the payoff seem higher), the 4-teamers 10 to 1, and so on. It’s pretty clear that every reporter covering the story picks up a parlay card, asks the management folks a couple of cursory questions, and then orders a cheeseburger.

But you can’t blame the reporters. They don’t know a thing about sports betting, having no background in the activity at all. It’s like if a newspaper asked me to go cover a quilting competition. So they see all the cards lying around, pick one up, and report on the odds on the back. They never look up to the odds board and notice the slightly different, more up to date pointspreads, and ask “what’s this all about?”

So given the media’s lack of background, why wouldn’t the management people make it clear that people can bet 3-team parlays and teasers at the same odds that are paid at most Vegas and online sportsbooks? After all, it would attract more business.

So you wouldn’t know this from the newspapers, but when you actually explore the web sites of the racetracks offering the NFL parlays, you discover that you can actually walk up to the counter and play “off the board” parlays with more competitive odds. Three team parlays pay 6-1 instead of 5.5-1.

The catch is you can’t fill out a slip or punch out a card to play these. You actually have to go up to the counter and ask for them. But by doing so you get 9% more if your parlay wins.

Now there are actually some parlay cards in Nevada that are very strong propositions. But the value in them generally revolves around the fact that stale or inflated lines are still available. For instance, if you can parlay a trio of NFL 3-point underdogs as +3.5 point underdogs, you can expect a better ROI over time than if you got a 9% higher return but only got +3 on each. But assuming that inflated or stale lines aren’t available, the “off the board” parlays are better value than the cards. 6-1 for three teamers, 11-1 for 4-teamers, and so on isn’t bad. It’s pretty much the industry standard.

Their 3-team, 6-point teasers at +160 aren’t as good as a few books pay, but they are pretty much paying the industry standard. So it’s not a complete ripoff. They’ll do well with these, of course, as few people know how to play teasers correctly. But at least they aren’t blatantly fleecing people, which is the impression that you get from the news coverage.

So it’s nice to see that Delaware is offering legit parlay and teaser odds. It’s just too bad they aren’t clarifying the difference between the cards and the “off the board stuff” to the media covering them.

The NFL led a lawsuit that successfully (for now) has stopped Delaware’s plan to offer single game sports betting. They say their concern is to protect “the integrity of the game”.

Yet the owners of the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers actively promote betting on the NFL, even on and against their own team. Both the Glazer family (Bucs) and Randy Lerner (Browns) own Premier League soccer clubs that call these bookmaking firms their “betting partners”. And NFL broadcaster Fox Sports is owned by News Corp, which owns 39% of Skybet, an online bookmaking firm that offers a full menu of NFL betting action.

Details are in this video.

If you can’t see the video above, try this link.

The way the NFL sues Delaware to stop an activity their owners are actively promoting is curious. Yet if the State of Delaware brought any of this up in defending their plans for single-game sports betting against the NFL it is a well-kept secret.

We’ll have more information on the NFL and Delaware sports betting later this week.

Plenty of notes from the first full weekend of NFL and college football.

1. “Sports betting” began this weekend in Delaware with plenty of problems.  Long lines due to the need of managerial overseers in Vegas to approve bets.  You really need approval when you’re paying 5.5-1 on 3-teamers when industry standard is 6-1 and books have made money at 6.5-1?     Much more on the issue of NFL betting in Delaware this week, so come back to RealWorldSports.com for more.  
2. If you had the Duke/Army game under the total, avert your eyes.  Duke CB Leon Wright picked off Army passes and returned them for TD’s on consecutive plays with 1:48 and 1:32 remaining.  The second score put the game over the total.  Army’s 6-10, 283 pound slot receiver (not a misprint) Ali Villenueva then caught a TD pass on the game’s final play to round out the scoring for the 35-19 final
3. Thaddeus Lewis is a well-regarded QB for Duke and became only the second Dookie to notch 50 career TD passes (first had to be Ben Bennett, right?) in the win over Army but was pulled for ineffectiveness. (5-16 for 60 yards).  But Lewis is back in the lineup and Sean Renfree (7 for 8 in relief) will again be the backup this week according to Duke Coach David Cutcliffe.
4. Jim Tressel’s catching a lot of flack in Columbus about his time management and overall game strategy.   The end of the first half could have been clock managed better.  On the other hand, trusting his defense at the end of that game instead of kicking a long, long field goal gets little questioning from this corner.  But that offensive game plan sure was stodgy, wasn’t it?  Pryor doesn’t seem comfortable or confident, or at least he didn’t on Saturday night.
5. And speaking of that unimaginative offense, who would have thought a week-and-a-half ago that Buckeye types would be suggesting that maybe Ohio State could take a lesson from Ann Arbor? 
6. Sports handicapper Matty Baiungo has isolated a “pure fade” of a team that he’s going against again this week.  His opinion is supported by some solid statistical analysis as well. It’s one of 10 fully analyzed plays in the Maximum Profit Football Weekly. and you can subscribe to “The Max” for a little more than $6 per week through the Super Bowl by calling 1-770-649-1078.
7. “Game Story Line of the Week” comes from Desmond Conner of the Hartford Courant in his gamer on the ugly UConn/North Carolina matchup.  Of the Tar Heels, Conner wrote, “if that was the 19th ranked team, this is going to be a bad year for college football.”
8. Syracuse’s road loss to Penn State was a rarity.  No, not that the Orangemen lost (though they are playing a lot harder than they did under Greg Robinson). It was a rarity because it was an actual road game.  SU’s second game on the road doesn’t take place until November 7th when they visit Pitt.
9. Georgia’s been losing offensive linemen left and right the past few years, including stud OT Trinton Sturdivant last week. Now the injury bug has hit the other side of the ball.  Senior defensive end Rod Battle is out of the year with an ACL tear.   This certainly doesn’t help the Dawgs, but UGA’s pass rush has been lacking the past couple of years, and this gives a young player a chance to step up.
10. A football bettor needs to make sure he’s getting full effort from the team he backs, and Colorado’s defense absolutely looked as though they quit on Dan Hawkins Friday night. Toledo notched over 300 yards both passing and rushing, with the total damage hitting 624 yards.   Despite that, Hawkins is likely to last the season due to the $3 million buyout required by his contract.  Apparently the Buffs athletic department isn’t sitting on a pile of cash right now.  Hawkins suggested that he had a potential 10-win team on his hands in the preseason, which is reminiscent of Jim Donnan saying “I’ve waited my whole life to coach a team like this,” before Quincy Carter’s disastrous final year at Georgia.
11. Technical handicapper Dave Fobare has a college play out of an angle that is 46-12 with the average cover margin of a stout 9 points per game.   It’s one of 10 fully analyzed plays in the Maximum Profit Football Weekly. You can subscribe to The Max for a little more than $6 per week through the Super Bowl by calling 1-770-649-1078.
12. Talking to the press after Florida State’s narrow escape against 1-AA Jacksonville State, Bobby Bowden repeatedly referred to Jacksonville State as “Troy”.   The explanation that Bowden warned his team all week about how this game set up so similar to FSU’s narrow win over Troy a couple of years ago does make some sense. But the feeling persists that both FSU and Bowden would have been better off had the coaching legend step aside five years ago.  
13. Monday night was a bookie’s dream, particularly those who get a lot of “Favorite Freddies” playing and who had players with open teasers rolling into Monday night.  Both ugly dogs cover, with the Bills and Raiders keeping the Patriots and Chargers from covering teasers.  But neither dog wins outright in case there was some big money line action working on the dogs.  Nice night to be on the 11 side of the 11-10.
14. When a team turns the ball over 7 times in their opener, after turning the ball over 6 times in their playoff loss last year, the quarterback is going to take some heat.   But John Fox points out that the offensive line gave Jake Delhomme no chance on Sunday.  Jim Johnson must have been proud looking down on his Eagles defense.
15. How meaningless is preseason football?  The Eagles and the Falcons both looked lousy defensively all preseason long.  Yet they caused a combined 11 turnovers (4 ATL, 7 PHA) and dominated the opposing offenses.
16. If you think turnovers revert to the norm, you must be all over the Panthers plus the points at the Falcons on Sunday.   You’ve got the team that suffered a 2-7 turnover deficit taking points from the team that benefited from a 4-0 turnover edge.
17. Yeah, those who bet the Chiefs at any price, including the closing +13, have every right to bitch after seeing a late game 24-24 affair turn into 38-24.  But Baltimore’s yardage edge was 501-188, so you can’t complain too loudly.
18. Earl Bennett didn’t have a single catch last season.  But the Bears wideout has the advantage of having been Jay Cutler’s teammate at Vanderbilt.  Bennett was thrown to 13 times by Jay Cutler on Sunday night, catching 7 of the balls, his first career catches.   Was Bennett simply being ignored by the Packers or is the familiarity a crutch for Cutler?  In any event, after Cutler looked so great in the preseason, those 4 INT’s were a killer for Chicago.  
19. The NFL Network’s Deon Sanders is serving as a mouthpiece for his former agent, Eugene Parker.  Sanders claims that two teams were interested in trading for Michael Crabtree’s rights.  But San Francisco Chronicle reporter John Crumpacker properly labels Sanders’ claim as “ridiculous” , informing us that it is past the deadline to trade for the rights to a rookie.
20. Any collegians coming out into next year’s draft should cross Parker off their list of potential agents.   With the NFL’s slotting system, a rookie holdout is preposterous, yet Crabtree is asking for more money than those drafted several places ahead of him.  This holdout could well be a career killer.
21. Fawning coverage of Brett Favre’s performance on Sunday, yet he didn’t have to do much and what he did he didn’t do well.   When your team is running for more than 6 yards per rushing attempt and your opponent has to react to that, you should be averaging a lot more than 3.3 yards per pass attempt as a team.
22. A team that came a few seconds from winning the Super Bowl is visiting a team that was 5-11 last year, yet the homestanding 0-1 Jaguars are a 3-point favorite over the visiting Cardinals.  That line will likely only go up from there.  You never would have seen a Super Bowl taking points to a below .333 team in Week 2 a few years ago.
23. Oddswiz.com tells us that offshore sportsbooks handled the opening week rush pretty well.  Site crashes used to be the norm for unprepared online sportsbooks.  But things were pretty smooth last weekend.
24. I was in a sports bar/restaurant on Saturday night and there were two audible groans within a few minutes of each other when scores flashed showing that Florida State came back against Jacksonville State and Maryland pulled it out in OT against James Madison.   People just love the plucky little underdog, although JMU would undoubtedly blanch at such a characterization.
25. My colleague Erik Scheponik has an NFL play based on some strong matchup analysis that’s also supported by a 15-2 trend.   It’s one of 10 fully analyzed selections in the Maximum Profit Football Weekly.  Subscribe to The Max for a little more than $6 per issue through the Super Bowl by calling 1-770-649-1078.

Thanks for reading this far.  Good luck and be careful.

Here’s a look around the football wagering world as we head into the opening week of college action.  No mentions of anyone named Favre or Kiffin, so come on in.

1. The NFL is playing 16 exhibition games this weekend, largely by guys who will hit the waiver wire over the weekend.  Meaningful players will be rested.  Fans will pay full season prices. 
2. In 15 of those 16 games, the line is 4 points or less.   Lone exception? The Jaguars are favored by 6 over the Redskins after Washington announced that Daniel Snyder would be playing QB for the ’skins.  
3. Welcome to “I told you so” time for some political types in Delaware, who are dusting off a 6-year old report that projected single-game sports betting would not gain legal approval. 
4. This week word came that Delaware parlays must be three-teams or more, just like it was for their three-month foray into sports betting back in 2006.
5. Phil Fulmer wants to coach again.  But only at a place that’s committed to winning championships.  Fulmer told this to his CBS College colleague Tony Barnhart.  Barnhart kept a straight face for the sake of their working relationship. 
6. Underachieving former powers usually underperform to the pointspread.  Surprisingly Tennessee actually went 6-6 against the spread last year, a season where they went 5-7 straight up.  Fulmer’s Vols actually went 16-9-2 to the number the  two years before that.  Those numbers startled me.  I guess I just picked my spots well going against him. 
7. Big 10 types are always playing the “disrespect” card, but they seem to disrespect themselves with their opening week scheduling.  Four Big 10 outfits play 1-AA teams and the rest are all favored by 7 or more.  Minnesota at Syracuse and Illinois’s neutral site affair with Missouri are the only games with lines in the single digits.  Everyone else is a double digit home favorite.
8. The SEC has a surprisingly tough opening week, with half of their teams playing away from home, including road games South Carolina at NC State, Georgia at Oklahoma State, LSU at Washington (looked tough when it was scheduled), and Alabama taking on Virginia Tech in Atlanta. 
9. I like TJ Simers of the LA Times, and not just because he doesn’t like Rick Neuheisel either. “It’s usually a waste of time listening to anything Rick Neuheisel has to say…” the column begins.  And not a lot of newspapermen would ask “Why do you hate Mitch Mustain?” to open Pete Carroll’s press conference.   
10. The up, up, and away betting action on Oklahoma is due to more than just the Sooners’ Obama-like transcendence, BYU has a lot of guys nicked up and playing hurt.
11. The up, up, and away betting action on Cal is due to more than just revenge.  Maryland is not a seasoned club. 58 of their 85 scholarship players are redshirt sophomores or younger.
12. The up, up, and away betting action on UTEP is due to more than just the season-ending injury to Buffalo RB James Starks (1300+ rushing yards in ‘08).  Buffalo enjoyed monumental good fortune, outgaining only 4 of their 13 opponents yet winning the MAC thanks to a 34-14 turnover advantage.
13. The up, up, and away betting action on NC State is due to more than just the enormous QB edge that the Wolfpack enjoy in the game.  South Carolina has two starting defensive linemen lost to suspension.
14. Laying 110?  How about losing 110?   You can’t research Maryland football without being told ad nauseum about Ralph Friedgen’s weight loss.   The Fridge started at 401 and is creeping down to the low 290’s.   And the loss is non-surgical.   Good for him.
15. Levi Brown was Coach Dave Clawson’s backup QB at Richmond in 2005-06.  Thursday night they face each other as Brown, a star QB for Troy, provides the opposition for Clawson’s first game as Bowling Green head coach.  No real edge in that information, just a strange coincidence.
16. Remember when the world would stop for the titanic Miami/Florida State matchup?   Now it’s simply a game between two clubs who are a combined 38-33 against 1-A opponents the last three years.
17. Another sign of the decline of the ACC is the fact that two-time defending champ Virginia Tech, with 15 returning starters, is an underdog by nearly a TD to an Alabama team returning only four offensive starters.
18. Since Navy hired Paul Johnson away from Georgia Southern, Army’s been vanquished by their hated rival 7 straight times by a combined 274-71.  If you can’t beat ‘em, why not join ‘em?   Army has hired the most innovative run-based coach in 1-AA football in Cal Poly’s Rich Ellerson, who has significant family ties to West Point.
19. This week’s college card has pretty even pointspread distribution.   11 games have lines of 6.5 or less.   9 games are lined between 7 and 13.5, 12 contests have spreads from 14 to 20.5, and 8 games are lined at 21+.
20. The biggest spread of the week is Texas -41.5 over Louisiana-Monroe.  Mack Brown used to take the air out of the ball in second halves of blowouts, but you can’t do that if you’re poll watching.   The Longhorns went 5-1 against the spread when favored by 24+ last year.
21. Oklahoma State’s QB Zac Robinson was reported out of the Georgia game by a blogger on Wednesday afternoon.   The rumor was vehemently denied by Cowboy types, but that didn’t stop some sports books from taking the game off the board until things got cleared up.
22. Former staffing pointspread ramifications as Utah hosts Utah State on Thursday night. You’ve got to wonder if the Utes will have any inclination to run the score up on their former defensive coordinator Gary Andersen (not the former kicker, not the former football handicapper).  USU is a “big dog with more returning starters” play, as the Aggies have 17 starters back to only 11 for the Utes, which is probably why the line has been creeping down just a smidge.
23. Safe to say that no Michigan coach has ever had a more important game against a MAC opponent than Rich Rodriguez has against Western Michigan Saturday.   This team knows that they have the fate of their coach in their hands.   How will they react?
24. It’s not too late to subscribe to The Maximum Profit Football Weekly newsletter.   Five thoroughly researched selections are in this week’s edition and then it’ll be 10 plays a week (a mix of college and pro) until December.  Then every college bowl and NFL playoff game written up. Additional bonus information throughout the week.  And you can get it for just over $6 an issue. Call 770-649-1078 to subscribe. 
25. It’s also not too late to get our Maximum Profit Football Annual with the “go with” teams, the “go against” outfits, and the interview with offshore sportsbook authority www.Oddswiz.com who has offered online analysis of the offshore sports book industry since 1994.   And by the way, using those “go with” and “go against” teams in the way suggested by our “Full Season Value Strategy” left readers with a 40-21 (65.5%) pointspread record for the 2009 college and NFL season.   Visit www.FootballAnnual.com for your free copy.

Good luck and be careful.

A federal appeals court shocked everyone yesterday by yanking the rug out from under Delaware’s plan for single game sports betting.   The three-judge panel decided that Delaware (state motto: Our Lawyers Suck) could only offer parlay bets, and not single game wagers as planned.  They also have limited the wagering to the NFL.  In their infinite wisdom, the jurists interpreted the 1992 federal law banning sports betting except in grandfathered states Nevada, Delaware, Montana, and Oregon as limiting Delaware to the wagering options they offered before 1992.  Delaware offered a few months of NFL parlay card betting in 1976.

The governor and state officials are understandably upset, as are officials at the three Delaware racetracks that are in the midst of multi-million dollar renovations to turn portions of their facilities into Vegas-style sports books.

Delaware politicians who were counting on a revenue boost were stunned by the unexpectedly far-reaching decision. Fortunately for these officials, I have their solution, it’s called “The First State Parlay.”

Delaware is permitted to offer parlay wagers on NFL football, but not single game wagering.     So why not create a parlay that comes as close to possible as mimicking single game wagering.  Here’s how it works.

The “First State Parlay” requires the bettor to pick one team at the prevailing pointspread.   That team must win to complete the first leg of the parlay.   The bettor then picks a second game where they are allowed to move the line 47 points.   The bettor must lay 11 to 10 odds on his parlay bet.  11-10 is the standard for single-game wagers in the sports betting industry.  

Let’s show an example of how the “First State Parlay” would work.  In the first week of NFL action, let’s say Vinnie Cheesesteak from Philadelphia wants to drive down to Delaware Park to bet $110 to win $100 on his beloved Eagles at +2 over the Panthers.    He must combine the Eagles at +2 with a second game that he gets to move 47 points, so he takes the Bears, currently a 3-point dog, at +50  over the Packers.

If the Eagles cover +2, and the Bears can stay within 50 points of the Packers, Vinnie Cheesesteak wins $100.  If the Eagles don’t cover the spread he loses $110.   If either game lands right on the number it’s a push, and his stake is refunded, no matter the result of the other game.

While this comes very close to replicating single game wagering, by stipulating that the second leg of the parlay can be moved by 47-points, and no more, Delaware can claim that there is still an element of chance.  In the playoffs following the 1999 season the Jacksonville Jaguars hosted the Miami Dolphins in the what proved to be the last NFL game for both QB Dan Marino and coach Jimmy Johnson.  If you took the Dolphins from +7.5 and moved them 47 points to +54.5, you would have lost your bet by a half-point when the Dolphins were filleted by the Jags 62-7.   

Is the “First State Parlay” an obvious workaround to try to turn single game betting into parlay betting?   Yes.   But it seems to fit into the new parameters set by the court.  Delaware should hire some new lawyers and have them consider it as a potential solution.  

We’ll have more on the legal issues regarding sports betting in the days ahead, as well as in the Maximum Profit Football Annual 2009, which will be released this week.   Visit www.FootballAnnual.com to arrange for your free copy to be sent to you.