On the NFL season, betting every underdog is ever so slightly profitable, even with the juice.  This is despite the fact that blindly betting road favorites in the NFL, is also ever so slightly profitable, even with the juice.    Favorites enjoyed a 10-6 mark on the week just past.   The weekend started with the Steelers outright loss at Cleveland.  With losses to the Browns, Raiders, and Chiefs, Pittsburgh has now lost outright as a double digit favorite 3 times in their last 4 games.  Throw in their loss to the Bengals the week before that and you have 4 outright losses in 5 weeks as a better than TD favoirte.  That’s gotta be historic, doesn’t it?

Monday night was a 7/11 game for the Cardinals, 7 turnovers and only 11 first downs.   The Niners got a nice win even though they passed for only 3.9 yards per attempt with a pair of interceptions themselves. Take away the Alex Smith kneeldowns, and the Niners rushed for over 5.8 yards per attempt, which is pretty impressive.  Back to the Cards turnovers, one was a fumble on the final play of the first half at midfield.  No harm done.  It seems as though there should be special categories for turnovers.  A first and goal interception in the opponent’s end zone is debilitating.  But on third and long an interception 45 yards down the field is likely a better net result than what you’d get on a punt on the next play.  I’m sure somebody’s doing a “situational turnover” number.  I just haven’t seen it yet.

Similarly, the Jets/Bucs game wasn’t all that different than the Monday nighter.  The Jets had scoring “drives” of 9, 22, 31, and 7 yards as the Bucs had 3 turnovers and a grand total of 6 first downs in the game in which they averaged 2.2 yards per play.  Not per rush, per play.  First downs don’t always tell the tale, as the Titans had only a 19-15 first down edge in their 47-7 whipping of the Rams.  The Titans had at least 5 plays of 30 yards or more from scrimmage in that game, and any team with the blazing speed and big play ability of Chris Johnson and Vince Young is not going to have a lot of choppy drives.   In fact, their first two TD’s were on a 4-play, 65-yard drive and a 2 play, 82-yard drive.   The Titans/Rams game was an interesting case of a team that started the season 0-6 being favored in a game by nearly 2 TD’s later in the season.   But that tends to happen when a team on a winning streak is facing a team quarterbacked by somebody named Keith Null.

All 12 scoring drives in the Giants/Eagles game were of 59 yards or more.  The Eagles gained “only 374 yards on Sunday night in scoring 45 points.   They were massively efficient, with their 7 non-scoring drives gaining only a total of 15 points.  That does include taking a knee to end both the half and the game, but is still meaningful.  Philly opponents average more possession time than the quick-strike Eagles do.  Yet Rick Gosselin points out that the 2006 Colts were the only team to ever win the Super Bowl without possessing the ball longer than their opponents.  Incredibly, it was as recently as the Sunday before Thanksgiving that the Giants had the league’s “#1 defense” as judged by yardage per game allowed.   Now they rank 15th in the more accurate yards per play allowed, and the New Yorkers have permitted 32.3 points per game over their last 8 contests.

Our newsletter, the Maximum Profit Football Weekly (aka “The Max”) is on a nice hot streak of 59-33 (over 64%) against the pointspread.  Our Bowl Max comes out this week with a full analysis of every bowl game. Every NFL playoff game will be covered as well.  This week’s NFL Max is waiting for you when you call 1-770-649-1078 to subscribe. 

The Packers hot streak is no big surprise.  They have been very impressive both offensively and defensively on the line of scrimmage, and have started to clean up some of their problems, like getting sacked, poor special teams, and being the most penalized team in the league.  Aaron Rodgers has now been sacked only 6 times in the last 4 games and the Pack committed only 4 penalties for a total of 30 yards in their win over the lifeless Bears on Sunday.

I’m told that the sports books in Vegas seem painfully slow lately.  It will be interesting to see what the Nevada Gaming Control Board numbers indicate for the football season.  Online and offshore sportsbooks are still doing better than most realize, though they certainly aren’t enjoying the kind of hypergrowth they once did.   No matter where you’re betting, go beat them this weekend.