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.

by Kevin O’Neill 

Pitching a shutout, the Patriots were over the total by themselves in the first half of their whipping of 1-AA’s Tennessee-Nashville on Sunday, leading 45-0 after 30 minutes with a total bet down from 41.5 down to 37.5 due to the weather.   Can’t say I can recall a team superseding the full game total in the first half any time recently.  Seems like a long time ago that the Titans came within a sliver of knocking off the mighty Steelers in their opener. The biggest change from last year’s 13-3 Titans outfit to this season’s winless edition is the loss of defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.   Schwartz appears to be building things the right way in Detroit, while his replacement, Chuck Cecil is understandably taking a ton of heat.   You don’t frequently see teams fail to cover consecutive games by 23, 19, and 50, but those are results that the boys from Nashville have taken into their bye week.  The Titans gave up 24 TD’s in 16 games last year.  They’ve given up 24 TD’s in 6 games this year.

Remember how stout Buffalo’s run defense was in New England in their opener?   The Bills held the Pats and Bucs to less than 130 yards combined in those first two games.  In the four games since their opponents have fun all over Buffalo for 961 yards.  Have you ever seen a coach look less joyful and more relieved following a dramatic upset win than Dick Jauron was after the 9.5-point underdog Bills knocked off the Jets on Sunday?   If you let the New York papers make your decisions for you, Rex Ryan has gone from the future of football to an obese blowhard in just three short weeks.  The Jets trip to Oakland suddenly looks winnable for the Raiders, winners as double-digit puppies against the Eagles.  But does Richard Seymour really mean it when he predicts a playoff appearance for Oakland?   The thought here is that Seymour’s looking to further cement his team-first reputation for his appearance on the free agent circuit this offseason.

The Chargers gain 6.0 yards per play, allowing 5.6.  The Chiefs gain 4.3 yards per play and allow 6.1.  Kansas City has been outyarded by over 190 yards 4 times in their 6 games thus far, with games against the sorry Raiders and pathetic Redskins being the exceptions.  And the Chargers really, really, really need to win if they want to be playing meaningful football from here on out.   Yet you can lay as little as 4 with the San Diego?   Not exactly two thumbs up from the marketplace for Mr. Norv Turner. 

Bill Belichick failed in Cleveland because he projected the personality of his mentor Bill Parcells, despite being a first time head coach.   An argument could be made that Belichick proteges have made the same mistake. Charlie Weis has been a failure at Notre Dame and Eric Mangini is failing with his second team, wearing out their welcome in part due to their abrasive personalities.   Lower key Romeo Crennell didn’t fail in Cleveland due to being a jackass, he just failed.   So Belichick has got to be pleased to see Josh McDaniels doing so well in Denver.   McDaniels is an impressive a new coach as you’re going to find, with organization, game planning, in-game strategy, clock managment, etc. all wired.   The Broncos are 6-0 not only straight up, but to the pointspread as well.   Has a rookie coach ever covered his first 6 games before?

The Rams have been more competitive than the final score indicated recently, outgained by only a combined 100 yards in consecutive losses to the Vikings, Niners, and Packers that saw them outscored by a combined 109-27.  Then they turn around and lose a 23-20 squeaker to the Jaguars despite being outgained 492-262.  Go figure.   The Colts run for only 79 yards per game on 3.3 yards per carry, both numbers placing them in the bottom five of the league.  That’ll catch up with them, won’t it?  Actually the way Manning’s playing, maybe it won’t. Who needs a running game when you are averaging 9.0 yards per pass attempt against the sophisticated pass defenses of the NFL?  Indy’s 9.0 yards per pass attempt would put them in the top 10 in college pass passing offense, though you might want to back out the game against 1-AA Tennessee-Nashville for a more accurate number.

To the relief of Vegas and online sportsbooks, the NFL’s ugly puppies finally showed some signs of life last Sunday in the NFL, with dogs of more than +7 going 4-2 against the number, including a pair of straight up upsets of the Bills over Jets and Raiders over Eagles.    All three big favorites this week are on the road, with two-TD lays for the Colts at St. Louis and the Patriots against the Bucs in London.    The Packers opened a shade under a TD but the Cleveland flu news has seen that line rocket upward. 

Thanks for reading this. Good luck with your underdogs, favorites, overs, and unders this weekend. 

How bad was Denver’s defense last season?   They were near the bottom of nearly every important defensive category.  And I’m told that when then-coach Mike Shanahan’s defensive staff evaluated their roster after the season, they found they had virtually no players that would be of interest to other teams.  So it’s pretty remarkable that it is the Bronco D that has led the team to a 5-0 start both straight up and against the spread.  

The allowances of Denver’s D have gone from 28 points per game to 9, 375 yards to 253, and 6.1 yards per play to 4.2 (with dramatic improvement in both run defense and pass defense).  And the Broncos D is highly efficient as well.  Last season Denver opponents had to gain only 13.4 yards to score a point.   This season the opposition has to gain over 28 yards to notch one measly point.   The offensively armed Bengals, Cowboys, and Patriots have been on the schedule already and only New England has scored more than 10 points against the Broncos this year, notching 17 yet losing in overtime.

Who deserves the credit?   New head coach Josh McDaniels was New England’s offensive coordinator last season.   And the Broncos offense is doing what it needs to do, but not a ton more than that.  The real hero of this transformation is defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, who just couldn’t catch a break as 49ers head coach the past few years.

Perfect and Imperfect:  Marc Lawrence has always trumpeted the “In the Stats” approach, and looks for overvalued and undervalued teams by comparing their straight up record with how many times they’ve outscored their opponents.   The Redskins have won yardage in 3 of their 5 games against their schedule, but it isn’t paying off on the scoreboard.   The Vikes are 5-0 and the 49ers are 4-1 but both have been outgained by 3 of their 5 opponents. The Giants, Steelers, and Eagles have outgained all of their opponents so far.   Of all the hideous teams in the NFL, only the Bucs have now been outgained in every game.  Some football people really like young QB Josh Johnson, who was coached at the University of San Diego by Jim Harbaugh.  

Hall of Fame Bust On Hold: It’s great to have confidence in your defense, Rex Ryan, but that’s putrid reasoning behind the indefensible decision to sit on your timeouts in a circumstance where it is obvious you should be using them.  The Jets seem to specialize in coaches who exercise poor clock management.   Herm Edwards was the worst.  And why weren’t Ryan’s assistants imploring him to manage the end of the game better?  Or is dissent not something that would be welcome in Rex’s world?  And no, that isn’t sour grapes, Miami actually capped off our winning weekend by completing a 2-team teaser.

Massive Pointspreads:  I never thought I’d see a week in the NFL where there could be three 14-point spreads.  But that may be the case this week.   There are also three lines in the 9 to 9.5 range.  Might we see 6 double-digit underdogs in the NFL?  Probably not, as the public money that steams up favorites doesn’t seem to be in effect this season.

Cowboys Offensive But Not Over: Add up the yards per play offensively and the yards per play allowed defensively of NFL teams and nobody can come close to the total generated by the Dallas Cowboys.  The Cowboys are gaining 6.7 yards per play, second only to the Colts (a sick 7.1).  Dallas is allowing 6.2 yards per play, which is #30 in the league.  So with all this offense, and poor defense, how is it that the Cowboys last two games have gone under by 20 points and 16 points?  Offenses aren’t very efficient in Cowboys games.  Dallas’ O requires 16.7 yards to gain a point, which indicates they are spinning their wheels a good bit.  But the Cowboys D gives up points begrudgingly, requiring opponents to go a full 19 yards to gain a point, which is 7th best in the league.   So there’s a ton of yards in Dallas games, but that offensive production isn’t being turned into points.  

The “Worldwide Wes” of the NFL? The top two wide receivers in college football’s Big 12 conference last season were Texas Tech’s Michael Crabtree and Oklahoma State’s Dez Bryant. Bryant was suspended for the season this week due to some questions about hospitality provided to him by Deion Sanders.  Crabtree finally signed this week with the 49ers after an ill-advised holdout, but not without a potential tampering charge filed by the Niners against the Jets.  NFL Network commentator Deion Sanders fingerprints are all over both situations. Why is Deion involved with the decisions of the clients of his former agent, Eugene Parker?   Good question, but something was likely in it for Deion. Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, who paid Sanders over $8 million of a year of half-hearted effort, is among those who will attest that Deion loves his money.   So is Deion feeding Parker clients, serving as the “Worldwide Wes” of the NFL?  Sanders also has a company that preps collegians for the draft called Prime U.

Very Good vs. Very Bad: 4 of 14 NFL games this weekend have double-digit pointspreads.  Two NFC East powers are favored by more than two TD’s, with the Eagles (over the Bucs), and the Giants (over the Raiders) favored by 15 points each.   The lines sure appear justified if the favorites care, as the Eagles and Giants both gain 1.3 yards per play more than their opponents, while the Bucs and Raiders each are outgained by 1.4 yards per play.  

The NFL See-Saw: It’s tough to be consistently good every single week, or consistently bad every week. The Eagles, Giants, and Steelers are the only teams to outgain all of their opponents this season.  The Bucs and Rams are the only teams to be outgained by everyone.  Both are being outgained by over 100 yards per game on the season.

Pity Missouri:  I had a conversation with a buddy of mine who is a St. Louis Cardinals fan about how painful the Thursday night loss must have been for him.   He told me it was awful, and his wife was even more upset than he was.  Especially with the shutout heading into the fourth quarter.  What?  Yup, he was talking Missouri Tigers, and I was talking St. Louis Cardinals, and they were both sources of pain for Show-Me-Staters on Thursday night.   And that’s hardly the worst of it, as Missouri’s NFL entrants, the Rams and Chiefs are both 0-4. They aren’t much better for bettors, a combined 1-7 against the spread, with the Rams narrow loss at Washington being the only cover for Missourians.

Bookies Crushed in the NFL Last Two Weeks:   A local Atlanta bookie today told me that he lost as much last weekend as he’s ever lost this early in the year.   All the popular teams he needed to stumble did well on Saturday, and then Sunday was a nightmare.  Favre’s Vikings and the over on Monday night hardly stemmed the tide.   Another was telling a similar tale, that the past couple of weeks have been very rough for him. NFL favorites are off to a good start so far this season, and local bookies are unlikely to have a lot of dog action to balance them off.   When favorites do well, locals often get crushed.

Pats D Getting Healthier?  Looks like Jerrod Mayo might play for the Patriots in Denver on Sunday.  With so much focus on Brady’s return, Mayo’s injury in week 1 has been overlooked.   The Patriots defense is not deep, and the second-yard linebacker out of Tennessee may be New England’s most important defender.  

It sure seems like there are a lot of bad teams in the NFL, and there’s been plenty of talk about how there might be some historically dreadful teams in our midst.   There are seven 0-3 teams, which seems high, and some of them have been awful to start the season.    Of these seven, which clubs will prove to be the worst?

Let’s look back to last year for some clues.  There were six teams that started 0-3 last season, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, and St. Louis.  I broke down their 0-3 starts in 2008 into different categories:

1. Losing margin in the three games: 4 of the 6 teams had been within single digits of at least one opponent.  Only the Lions and Rams had lost all three games by double digits.

2. Yardage in the three games: the 6 teams that started 0-3 had been outgained in 17 of their 18 combined games.   The Houston Texans managed to outgain an opponent by 11 yards in a loss.  But all the others had been outgained in each game.   Most were at least competitive in a game or two, staying within 100 yards of an opponent.   Only the Lions and Rams had been outgained by 100+ yards by all three of their opponents.

3. Pointspread Covers:  The pointspread is the great equalizer, and four of the teams had covered a game.  Only the Lions and Rams were 0-3 against the pointspread.

The Lions and Rams were 2008’s worst teams, being the only NFL clubs to be outscored by over 200 points on the season.   Detroit famously finished 0-16, outscored by 249 points on the season, and St. Louis was 2-14, outscored by 233 points.  The Kansas City Chiefs also finished 2-14 but they were much more competitive than the other two, being outscored on the year by 149 point.

So the Lions and Rams ended up the worst teams, and were the only clubs to start 0-3 to fit into any of our categories.  And they both fit into all three of them.

How Do 2009’s Dregs Compare?   Tampa Bay, Carolina, St. Louis, Miami, Cleveland, Tennesse, and Kansas City have all started 0-3 in 2009.  Who fits into our scoring, yardage, and pointspread categories of shame?  

1. Losing Margin in the three games: Tampa Bay and Cleveland are the only two teams that have lost all three games by double digits.

2. Yardage in the three games:  Not a single team has been outgained by triple digits by all of their foes, though Cleveland and Kansas City have been outgained by over 200 yards twice.  Remarkably, the Chiefs actually outgained the Raiders 409-166 in their bizarre loss to Oakland.  But no team has failed to be at least mildly competitive in at least a single game.

3 Poinstpread Covers.  Only Tennessee and St. Louis have covered a pointspread thus far, covering one each.  Nobody else has covered a spread, with the Bucs, Panthers, Dolphins, Browns, and Chiefs all 0-3 to the number.

This leaves us with a pair of questions.   First, who’s worst?   Second, can you possibly bet these teams going forward?

Who’s the worst?   While nobody is waving the flag of ineptitude quite as clearly as the Rams and Lions were last year, Tampa Bay and Cleveland both fit into two of our three categories.  Though the Bucs were outgained by 311 yards on Sunday against the Giants, they were outgained by only 12 and 85 yards in their other two losses.   The Browns maintained contact with the Vikings, outgained by a respectable 42 yards in their opener, but since have been mauled twice, outgained by 239 yards and 293 yards in the two games since then.

Cleveland looks to be worse than anyone on this list.  But Tampa’s no prize. Is it any surprise that both of these clubs announced quarterback changes this week?    And though they have a win, don’t the Raiders have a chance to surpass all of these clubs with their poor play?

How can you possibly bet these horrible teams?  Should we consider all these teams to be “go againsts” going forward in our betting?   Probably not.  Last year’s “Stinky Six” rebounded against the pointspread the rest of the way, going 39-38-1.   The Lions were 7-6 against the spread in their final unlucky 13 games, while the Rams were 6-7 in the betting world.   Last year’s Browns had the worst record to the line, going 5-7-1 the rest of the way, but it was a sea of mediocrity the rest of the way.

Takeaways:  What to you take away from this look at winless teams?    First, it looks like there might not be anyone as bad as the Rams and Lions were last year.  If the Browns and the Bucs are the worst so far, there are reasons for them to play hard.  Both teams have new coaches, and the players know that no matter how bad they are, it wouldn’t be wise to quit on the guys who will have your fate in their hands after the season.  They could also (possibly) be sparked by their replacement quarterbacks.

Secondly, no matter how bad they are so far, these ”Stumbling Seven” are likely to cover about 50% of their pointspreads going forward, which is also true for the teams that look the best so far.   Simply betting against these teams because of their rough start is far from a sure-fire moneymaker.  

Since the start of last season, teams that ran for 200 yards or more were 37-2 in the NFL.    Last weekend they were 2-3.  Yep, the Titans, Cowboys, and Dolphins all ran for over 200 yards…..and lost.  Houston’s sieve-like defense is allowing 215 yards rushing and 244 yards passing per game.  Those are Conference USA type numbers, but in this instance we’re talking about the NFL’s Texans, not the collegiate Cougars.  

I hear from a pretty authoritative source that Donovan McNabb isn’t eager to take a painkilling shot that would enable him to play despite his rib injury.   With the beatable Chiefs on the docket this week and a bye on the horizon, starting Kevin Kolb this week is the likely scenario for the banged-up Philadelphians.  An Eagles beat writer concurs, calling McNabb’s participation “unlikely”.

Parity alert: the only game between 2-0 teams this week is Niners vs. Vikings.  Despite not even thinking about throwing downfield, Minnesota looks great.  But allowing only 5.6 yards per pass attempt and 2.7 yards per rush attempt against a pair of teams (Cardinals and Seahawks) who lit up their other opponent indicates that the Singletarian way of doing things is catching on in San Francisco.   Up until the Super Bowl loss to the Giants, Tom Brady’s protection was impeccable.  Now it seems awfully easy to pressure the Pats.   That’s masked by the fact he’s only been sacked once in two games, but the hurries and hits have been frequent.

Joe Montana thinks that playing out of a spread formation with a lot of shotgun hinders the development of a quarterback.  But is Graham Harrell in the CFL because of the shotgun, or because he lacks arm strength?  Jevan Snead of Ole’ Miss takes a lot of direct snaps, which is one reason why the NFL scouts love him, but he also has a big-time arm.  There are only a certain number of guys who can make all the downfield throws against the speed and complexity of an NFL defense. It appears to me that the NFL is using more shoutgun than ever, and we’re sure to see some numbers on that in a couple of weeks. 

Scoring is big and big news in the NFL.   But playing every over would only have you at 17-15 thus far. The median NFL scoring offense is getting 20 points per game.   The median NFL scoring defense is allowing 22.5 points per game.    Last year those numbers were 23 and 22 respectively.   So talk of increased scoring in the NFL is largely a New Orleans Saints production, with a few teams (also Cowboys, Ravens, Titans, Panthers, Eagles, etc.) seeing big scores in their first couple of games.   5 games this weekend are lined at 46.5 or higher.

Lots of great stuff in the Maximum Profit Football Weekly this week, including a college play out of a 120-59 system backed by strong matchup support, a small college favorite that has a big edge in the playmaking department, a college dog with a significant coaching advantage, an NFL dog with some matchup edges that’ll surprise you, and an NFL favorite that a 56-17 system says is poised for a blowout win.   And those just scratch the surface. You’ll get a ton of content, plays and ideas when you subscribe to The Max for just over $6 per week, so why not do so?   Call 1-770-649-1078 to subscribe.

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.