Giants NFL’s #1 Defense: It may surprise you to learn that the NFL’s top defense is the Big Blue stop unit of the New York Giants, who are on an 0-4 straight up and pointspread streak.  In fact, the NFL’s #1 defense allowed their last 4 opponents to average over 33 points per game before their bye week. 

It’s true.  The NFL ranks their defenses by total raw yardage allowed per game, and the Giants permit opponents to gain only 274.4 yards per game, 3 yards better than the #2 Steelers D.   If you’ve seen the Giants play, you understand this to be a crock, and more accurate stats prove that.  The Giants allow 5.1 yards per play, which is 12th in the league and sounds about right based on their good start and poor recent play.  Amazingly, the NFL’s “#1 defense” is the leagues #21 scoring defense.  

What’s going on here?  Turnovers for one.  Giants opponents have gotten some cheap points.  The other aspect is that Giant opponents have run only 482 plays, which is 48 fewer than anyone else in the league has faced.  Does that speak to the pace of the game?  With several Giants games being blowouts with little urgency late does that contribute the slow pace?   Whatever the reason or answer, it’s odd.  

Quirky Schedule: The Giants and their “#1 defense” host the Falcons in the swamps of Jersey.  Atlanta has lost 3 of 4 and is just as desperate as the Giants. If it seems like Atlanta’s on the road a lot, you’re not imagining things. Falcons season ticketholders probably envisioned being at more than two home games between September 20th and November 29th.  Bettors can sometimes get an edge by downgrading the importance of statistics generated by teams that have played nowhere but on the road, though that concept is not a tight fit right here, as the Falcons did open with a pair of home games.

“Year of the Favorite” Update: The 10-4-1 performance by NFL dogs (six outright upsets)  brings the underdog record to 40-25-2 over the past five weeks.  And yes, that includes the ”week of the favorites” last month, which saw chalk go 9-3-1, allegedly almost blasting ”Vegas”, the euphamism for the sports book world, to smithereens.

Why does everyone say “Vegas” when they talk about the sports betting industry?  I have never seen a legitimate estimate from an industry person or academic authority that sports betting in Vegas makes up any more than about 2% of the market on sports betting.  I’d be surprised if it was 1%. So why “Vegas”?

One Terrible Bet: The one push that we list this week should actually be a favorite cover for Minnesota supporter with a clue.  The Vikings, who were 16.5 all week long, beat the hard-tryin’ Lions 27-10.  If you waited until the weekend to bet Minnesota at -17, you need one of two things, a new hobby, or some educatin’.   If the latter is your answer, you can find what you need here.

Great Moments in NFL Television: The TV time outs just kill NFL games when you attend them in person.   Fox left the Cowboys/Packers game for the first quarter intermission with a official review under way.   When viewers came back, the play had been reversed and 20 seconds put back on the clock.  A punt followed, and Fox ran their change-of-possession commercials at the 10 second mark.   One play later it was the end of the first quarter and….you guessed it….an encore performance of the “end of the quarter” TV time out.   And if you were annoyed by the three full commercial breaks on TV for 20 seconds of “action”, imagine how the fans sitting on their hands in Green Bay felt about the matter.    Incidentally, this was just a few minutes after Fox’s Curt Menifee had reported in a cut-in that the Eagles led the Chargers 14-7 when in fact the Chargers led 7-0.  The error was corrected by Fox a minute later.

Bad Team News: How does a team turn things around?   In their initial five losses, the Titans lost turnovers 18-8.   In their three straight wins, the Titans have won turnovers 8-0.  In other “we got off to a dreadful start” news, befitting their position in the standings, Oakland and Green Bay combined for a stout 0 for 18 in 3rd down conversions in the first half on Sunday, improving drastically in the second half by combining for 3 for 13 on those key plays.

Underdog Home Improvement: Another sign of Vegas and online sports book health is the performance of home dogs.  Sports books are usually rooting for road favorites to fail, and they’ve failed lately.   Home underdogs have battled back from their dreadful start and are now 21-24 to the spread.  

NFL: Phone Your Million Dollar Lobbyists: The newly elected governor of New Jersey will need to make a decision about whether or not New Jersey should get involved in a lawsuit against the Federal Government designed to free states up to make thier own decisions regarding sports betting.  The struggling Atlantic City casinos fear an exodus of players to Delaware for their new offerings, which include NFL parlay and teaser betting.

Thanks for reading this far.  We had a nice 4-0 NFL card this past weekend on my late phone service and are about to start basketball, which is annually a profitable venture, particularly in November/December.  If you want more information on these services call 770-649-1078.