NFL 11/8

I won last week so I’m probably due for another 5 or so losing weeks in a row. Both lines from Bodog:

Tampa Bay +10 -105(1)
Washington +10 -115(1)

FINAL ROUND OF HSBC

When you stumble in drunk tonight, you might want to remember to turn on the golf channel, because Tiger-Phil and Nick Watney make up a pretty entertaining final pairing.

ODDS:

Still not sure why I have such a disagreement on the value of Tiger this week, other than that it looks like he could care less about this event and just wants his appearance fee. Hopefully the Sunday red brings out the best in him.

RD4 Only:
Watney -105 v. Moore(1)

11/7

Baylor +14 -108(1)
Syracuse +21 -102(1)
Iowa St +7 -101(1)
Purdue +7 -108(1)

Going to wait on Stanford, Nebraska and possibly Arizona St.

EDIT: Stanford +7 -105(1)
Nebraska +6 -110(1)-Bodog

EDIT 2:
Arizona St. +11 -105(1)

WAITING UNTIL THE END

I’m not comfortable with the line right now on Louisiana Tech, which surprises me for how marginal this seems to me(not sure if I’m right). The Under on the other hand will be a play, but as the line has been rising all day, the plan as of now is going to be to wait until 5-10 minutes before kickoff, sell down to 50 or 50.5 and watch in agony as the score is 28-14 after the first quarter.

I say this just in case I don’t have a chance to post before game time, I wanted to give everyone an idea on where I stood.

Boise State/La Tech Under 52.5 -105(1)

WGC-HSBC Champions
Kim +100 v. Fisher(1)
Kaymer +110 v. Fisher(1)
Garcia +100 v. McIlroy(1)
Cink +100 v. Yang(1)

Odds:

EHH

For the second straight week, this is a less than stellar NFL lineup. That is a little surprising to me after the books took a big hit on that infamous Sunday that probably left about 4 teams incredibly overrated.

As always, the lines are from ESPN’s pigskin pick’em.

Contrarian Options:
Washington +10.5 v. Atlanta
I’m pretty sure it has been 2 solid weeks since anything positive was said about the Redskins. That’s fine, their offense is terrible, but they do have a legitimately good defense and out-gained the Eagles their last time out. I guess Atlanta hanging with New Orleans on Monday Football convinced the public Atlanta is better than they are.

Tampa Bay +10.5 v. Green Bay
Tampa Bay is awful and everyone knows it. Makes this easy enough.

I’m not gonna lie, the rest of this card is flat out awful. So, here are the rest of the picks broken down into three categories:

Line Value:
Houston +9.5 v. Indianapolis
Carolina +14.5 v. New Orleans
Dallas +3.5 v. Philadelphia
Denver +3.5 v. Pittsburgh

Opinion:
Baltimore -2.5 @ Cincy
New England -10.5 v. Miami
Kansas City +6.5 @ Jacksonville
Seattle -10.5 v. Detroit
New York Giants -4.5 v. San Diego
Tennessee +4.5 @ San Francisco

Toss-up:
Chicago -3.5 v. Arizona

If you want to discuss one of those games I breezed by, feel free to call me out in the comments, but I don’t see how any of those games are playable or worth discussing at the moment.

WEEKLY COLLEGE FOOTBALL THOUGHTS

Friday Night:
La Tech +21 v. Boise State:
Seems pretty marginal to me for a game involving Boise State. The big factor here could be Friday night on T.V., but I’m not totally comfortable with it. The wagerline splits on the OVER are pretty absurd, but that needs some further research as well.

Saturday:
Baylor +14 @ Missouri
The wagerline splits on this were a great surprise to me. I didn’t even notice this game on the first run through, but given what I saw in one game against a Chris Ault coached team, I will be all too happy to fade the Tigers.

Purdue +6 @ Michigan
Purdue is one of those much better than their record indicates 3-6 teams. I was worried that mystique of this Michigan team, might have been broken by the Juice last week, but I guess the public is willing to forgive a loss to such a talented team.

Syracuse +21 v. Pittsburgh
Another week where you could make a strong case for the breakfast trio of Paulus, Baylor and Juice.

Illinois +7 v. Minnesota
As much as I like Juice and his Michael Vick like throwing abilities, I think this one might be a force on a not necessarily overrated Minnesota team. If it’s on TV and Pam Ward is announcing, maybe.

Nebraska +4 v. Oklahoma
Absurd splits aside, I might pass this one. The line is down a few points since I last looked. On top of that, I’m not convinced that Oklahoma is a terribly overrated team playing with a back-up quarterback named “Landry.” I guess Nebraska hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire in their last three outings, but the two strikes above make this far from the gauranteed play it looked like early on.

Stanford +7 v. Oregon
I can’t make up my mind on this Oregon team. They have to be good, but the loss to Boise State sticks out like a sore thumb. That said, I can make up my mind that this will be a play.

Arizona St. +10 v. USC
Under normal circumstances I think this would be automatic. Unfortunately, USC doesn’t usually get blown out and out-gained by 300 on national television.

I think that’s about it for stuff I will consider.

Random Babblings
Clemson -8 was an option, but I don’t see any reason to get invovled on a strong hunch when the line has moved up a point and a half. Alabama down to -7.5 is tempting, too, because the gist I have gotten from ESPN this week is that LSU could keep that game close like Tennessee did. Unjustified opinion against terribly overrated Iowa, but I think they are a better option as underdogs at Ohio State in much higher profile game.

In the small schools, Villanova +1 against Richmond seems almost playable. Richmond is the defending national champion, undefeated so far this season and they are giving less than a field goal at home. I normally like to just follow this if I get bored and for the playoffs, but I could see myself playing this one.

UPDATED WGC ODDS

Nothing obvious sticks out. My edge on Tiger is about the same as it was before the tournament, so the books opinions haven’t changed drastically of him. I expect that to change if he moves up the leaderboard over the weekend.

Round 2:
Big Shot Bob -110 v. Ryo Ishikawa(1)
This one is obvious. There will probably be a day when this is a laughable price the other way, but that is a few years down the road. Allenby is one of the best 30 or so golfers in the world. Ryo, all hype aside, is not.

Having an internal debate about Watney against Moore because he shot the low round on the course and that’s not something I usually like to take. Also, Cink v. Yang is another option, but I’m not crazy about taking Cink. Considering the ridiculous stuff that has happened to me on 18 holers I’ll probably just go conservative and pass.

WGC-HSBC CHAMPIONS

Remember, if you are still in the running of the golf contest, you have until approximately 6 tonight to get your picks in.

The list of people I think make acceptable picks to win this week is this:
Tiger Woods
Steve Marino
Camilo Villegas
Robert Allenby.

As I have said before, I like Villegas, but his game just looks like it is all over the place right now. He has definitely under performed this year I think, but I also don’t remember him practically falling over, every swing in 2008, either.

Bob is marginal and considering he chokes away every tournament when he is close, I don’t think that is worth it.

Speaking of choking it away in contention every time, Steve Marino. For some reason, Marino seems to have the most reasonable price of anyone in the field considering Tiger is actually playing in this event. Some of the other top names prices hardly changed, although there is a ~35% chance Tiger will win.

I can’t make a case against Steve, but it’s also hard to make one for him with Tiger at over 2-1 out there.

I realize this is more handicapping than contrarianism, but I don’t see how I can avoid Tiger. In addition to him underperforming this year from last(may or may not be reasonable) I have him at over 40% to win and that is with 2/3 of his rounds coming this year at a lower performance level. Also, Tiger went off at +180 at the PGA Championship and lower than +200 at all of the PGA Playoff events leading up to the Tour Championship. There is no way that this field is stronger than the PGA Championship.

So, the final decision was either pass the outrights or take Tiger. I went with Tiger:

Tiger to win the HSBC Champions +215(2)

Match-ups:
When going through the match-ups three players stuck out to me as overrated.

Ross Fisher
Ian Poulter
Rory McIlroy

Obviously, Fisher and Poulter won last week, so that is a pretty easy explanation. Rory McIlroy is a little bit harder case, because he certainly has the talent to be one of the world’s elite, but I see no proof that he is currently among them(meaning: Phil, Sergio, Furyk, Stricker).

Anthony Kim was the obvious answer to go against them. His game seems to be rounding into form and he definitely has the upside.

Anthony Kim -110 v. Ross Fisher(1)
Anthony Kim +115 v. Ian Poulter(1)
Sergio Garcia -120 v. Rory McIlroy(1)
Alexander Noren -105 v. Ryan Moore(2)

Noren v. Moore was another obvious play. I took Garcia against McIlroy just to limit the risk on gang banging Kim in case something stupid happens, like accidentally breaking his driver than being DQ-ed for playing a non-conforming club. My numbers say the edge on those matches are about the same.

Kim has been hit down against Fisher, but I played that because Kim was -120/100 against Fisher over 36 holes last week. Given two more rounds, which should help in exposing the weaker player I don’t see a legitimate reason why it should now be -110/-120.

Hopefully these all win easily, so I don’t have to stay up until 6 in the morning sweating them out.

NOT MUCH COMPLAINING TO DO THIS WEEK

4-1 for the week was a pleasant surprise although I could have done without the typical Monday night shenanigans.

Weekly edition of stats copied from NFL.com

Underrated team of the week:
I’ll go with the New York Giants this week. In terms of yards per game they are in the top-3 of the league. Currently sitting at #15 on ESPN’s latest power rankings because of some big losses, I am going to say that is too low.

Not sure what to make of the Giants schedule so far as they have played some really good teams(NO, Phi) some mediocre ones(Dallas, ‘Zona) and some bad ones(TB, KC, Oak, Wash). Eli has been pretty terrible in his last few games, but you would have to think that changes.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure we will have a chance to take advantage of this unless you want to make a marginal play on the Giants favored by 6ish against Atlanta in a few weeks, which leads nicely to this:

Overrated team of the Week:
That would be the Atlanta Falcons. I think most people would say Atlanta is a pretty decent team, especially after they hung with mighty New Orleans on Monday Night.

Atlanta, however, has actually been outgained by their opponents. Interestingly enough, Atlanta is one of three NFL teams who have been outgained this year that also has a positive turnover ratio. I’m not totally sure if that is a result of them being less incompetent than teams like, say the Rams, but I definitely don’t see Atlanta as an NFC wild-card team.

If you really believe Atlanta is overrated, they play the Redskins next week and Carolina after that, so get used to rooting against Matt Ryan.

LEANS
Washington +10 v. Atlanta
Tampa Bay +10 v. Green Bay

Honestly, that seems like it for the NFL week.

GOLF CONTEST: LAST EDITION

WGC in China is the last chance to win. Golf is Fun hit a winner last time and made it close.

STANDINGS

PICKS FROM LAST TWO WEEKS
B/C I forgot to post these. I’m 99% sure they are right, but let me know if you think there is a problem

TOUR CHAMP SCORES
In case you forgot, these were the scores from last time.

WGC-HSBC CHAMPIONS
Groups: I tried to be fair considering I know people are going to pick a lot of longshots this week outside of the top-2, so I just made them randomly.

Match-ups:
Taken from 5 dimes

Lee Westwood v. Padraig Harrington
Retief Goosen v. Ernie Els
Rory McIlroy v. Sergio Garcia
Jerry Kelly v. Brian Gay
Y.E. Yang v. Ryo Ishikawa
Sean O’Hair v. Anthony Kim
Francesco Molinari v. Peter Hanson
Martin Kaymer v. Ian Poulter
Pat Perez v. Martin Laird
Camilo Villegas v. Robert Allenby(from my rankings)

I’ll Go with:
Team Name: Rexfordbuzzsaw
Groups:
Noren
Aiken
Marksaeng
Matches:
Garcia(2)
Kaymer
Perez
Gay

Good luck, and make sure to include a team name. Also, reminder this thing starts sometime Wednesday night here on the East Coast, so get them in on time.