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.