BY PETER HOUSTON – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
Each week during the NFL season I present a few facts and figures from the week that was in the NFL from a Las Vegas betting perspective. After all, if you’re going to place a friendly wager with your buddies you may as well be good at it.
By the numbers:
* 12 of 16 favourites (not including PHI/WAS, HOU/SD) won.
* Seven of 16 spreads were covered by favourites.
* Nine of 16 home teams won.
* Three of six road teams that won weren’t the favourite.
* Eight of 16 games were unders.
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Observations/analysis/snide remarks:
* Be wary of the big spread in the early going, the two biggest ones of the week (Patriots -10 and Colts 11) weren’t covered.
* Stay away from the young, unpredictable QBs (Geno Smith & E.J. Manuel – not ready to include Terrelle Pryor in this just yet) for a couple of weeks. They could, and likely did, ruin a few bets this week. Might even throw Michael Vick and the Eagles in this category. Vick could easily get hurt in that ultra fast offense and how do you think Nick Foles fits in?
* Interesting coaching decision of the week: Why did Brandon Weeden throw the ball 53 times and Trent Richardson only carry it 13 times? That’s like when… wait, no. Something as dumb as that has never happened before in sports.
* Interesting line of the week: the Giants opened at +3, then went up to +3.5 despite 55 percent of the public betting on the Cowboys. Usually they would make the odds (payout) worse for the Giants (and better for the Cowboys) to encourage more money on the Cowboys. But obviously Vegas felt like the Cowboys were going to win, so they want more money on the Giants (explained here in this great read). And what do you know, the Giants turn the ball over six times and the Cowboys win 36-31. Vegas always seems to know. The way Vegas adjusts the spread to how much money is being spent on either side of it will be an interesting trend to follow.
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* Although Carolina lost and didn’t cover the spread, I think they’re going to be a team that keeps things close this year, mostly because of their front seven/defense. I anticipate they’ll cover a lot of spreads as the underdog.
* Speaking of sneakily good front sevens, after Adrian Peterson’s first carry went for 78 yards and a touchdown, the Detroit defense held him to 15 yards on his final 17 carries.
* Are the Bucs who we thought they were, also known as: potentially a playoff team? Maybe they are (could have easily won that game without the dumb penalty), maybe they aren’t (they did allow THE JETS to keep it close all game). Realistically, it was only one game so we don’t know. If you need any convincing that it’s pretty much impossible to make any remotely conclusive judgments from one game, see New York Jets, Week 1, 2012 (48 points, Mark Sanchez: 19 of 27 for 266 yards, three touchdowns and one interception).