Week 14's Real Live Bets

I struggled mightily last week but I did hit on two of the three NFL bets I put real money on, those being Philly +10.5 over Dallas and Houston +5.5 over Tennessee. Lost Carolina -3 over KC. However, I also had some fun with college games and lost both my bets (my longshot Texas bet and three team underdog parlay) due to Collin Klein and Kansas State letting loose in the fourth quarter. Oh well.

This week, I don't really like most of the lines, so I'm going to mix in some Over/Unders.


BET 1: $5 on Baltimore/Washington OVER 47.5

These teams are so awful defensively that you can certainly see both breaking 30. Baltimore was fortunate to only surrender 23 points last week AT HOME TO CHARLIE BATCH, while the Skins somehow held the struggling G-men to 16. Which is fine with me, because this O/U should probably be somewhere in the 50s. Flacco can play against bad defenses and RGIII can run through any defense, specifically this Ravens one. They MAY have Ray Lewis back to jump on piles and they MAY have a 70-or-so percent Terrell Suggs with a bicep tear. I'll take my chances with the over, nahm'sayin'?



BET 2: $5 on Buffalo -3 over St. Louis

The more I looked at it, the more I like Buffalo here at home. St. Louis has been depending heavily on turnovers I can't see that lasting forever, even against a team as susceptible to giving the ball away as Buffalo can be at times. I don't think the Bills will have any problem winning this game at home. Recent weeks have skewed this line a bit more toward St. Louis than it should be, I think.

Trusting them Bills to circle the wagons and then post-cum all over Chris Berman's fat face.



BET 3: $5 on Dallas +140 moneyline over Cincinnati

Maybe it's just wishful thinking. But I've had a lot of predictive success over the years by not buying into the Bengals. Ever. I've never bought into the Bengals and they've rarely proved me wrong. I still don't think they are that good. I don't think Dallas is that good, but I can see this being a toss-up kind of game. And if one side has a +140 moneyline, I'll take my chances with that team.

Romo didn't throw any picks last weekend, which is kind of scary, but hopefully he can find one more week of that "throwing only to your own guys" magic that so often eludes him. Oh, and Dez has started to become a monster. Maybe he breaks out big-time in this one. He's due for one of those 200+ yard, 2 TD games.




BET 4: $5 on NYJ/Jacksonville UNDER 38.0

Why not? Neither of these teams is exactly a scoring machine. Jacksonville came back down to Earth last week and is also starting a running back absolutely no one has ever heard of. Montell something? I can't even remember his name.

The Jets, on the other hand, ARE DEBATING WHETHER OR NOT THEY SHOULD START MARK SANCHEZ OR GREG MCELROY. I imagine if you time traveled to 2015 and showed this blog to somebody, they'd say, "wait....that actually happened once? Some NFL team had that discussion?", and then tell you to leave their house, demon. Which is to say that they will probably struggle to score 10 points. I don't think you'll lose too much money betting against the offenses of Jacksonville and New York.




BET 5: $5 on Detroit/Green Bay OVER 51.5 

Kind of the opposite of the above - two teams that can score and can't stop other teams from scoring. I'm going out on a limb taking Green Bay to explode offensively, as they haven't recently and especially not at home, but if there's any team that can make them look like the Packers of old...it's Detroit. Detroit could potentially give them 52 points through stupid mistakes and bad coaching alone. Ndamawhatevs Suh could run right past 3 or 4 developing screen passes in the first half alone. He doesn't give a fuck about defensive responsibilities and neither should you in this one. Stafford has been so precariously close to throwing multiple pick-sixes over the last few weeks that he'll probably find a way to actually get that done this week. I'll take the points.


EDIT (Fri 12/7)
BET 6: $5 on Kansas City +240 to win over Cleveland

I have no idea who is going to win this game...so if they were to play it 3 times, do I think KC would win at least one of them? Probably, so why not take this curiously large moneyline? This is basically just picking in the dark but ehh, you only live once.