LAS VEGAS, NV – The NFL & NHLare as different as the presidential candidates. While the NHL has cancelled games through the middle of October and top flight NHL talent is signing with various European elite leagues, the NFL rolls along into Week #5 of its schedule.
Before you blink twice, football teams will be playing their tenth game while Donald Fehr sits on his ass as NHL games are wiped out through Thanksgiving. I am desperately trying not to have this event cloud my judgment for today’s gambling advice.
FAVORITE (last week 1-0/season 4-0)
One team that has surprised in the early going is the Cleveland Browns. Wait a minute. How is an 0-4 squad a surprise, you ask? Just ask the bettors who burned ca$h the young Cleveland team raced to a 3-1 point-spread record. The schedule has been unkind to the Dawg Pound faithful as 2012’s opponents are 12-4 thus far, and it speaks volumes to their competitiveness in these games. Today, I predict the wheels fall of the wagon against the NY Football Giants (-9 ½). This contest is the first non-prime time game the Giants are to play and comes after the Browns showcased themselves on Thursday Night Football, breaking the inexperienced team’s continuity early in the season. A roar most aptly heard at a Columbia Lions football game goes, “What’s the color of horse sh!t? Brown, Brown, Brown!” Indeed, things will get so messy that David Carr will takes snaps for most of the fourth quarter today. Giants by 21.
UNDERDOGS (last week 0-1/season 2-1)
Well, well, well. Look who finds themselves as dogs today. Man’s best fiend Mike Vick and his Philthy mates travel to western P-A to play the Steelers in the Keystone State Battle, and are getting 3 ½ in the process. The Eagles have performed as underwhelming as a 3-1 team with an 0-4 spread against the mark. The Steelers come off of a bye week which bodes well for them. However, the aging defense and slow Iron City Beer Boys have to contend with the Eagles overall team speed, and no amount of rest can substitute for faster legs. Vick & Co., for a change, hold onto the ball with a dog-like jaw grip and spit out some Pittsburgh flesh en route to victory.
UNDER (last week 1-0/season 3-0)
Here’s one of those where you call it gambling . . . the UNDER play of the day is BALT/KC (47). Everybody knows by now that the Ravens will be winning games with their spread offense and Ray Rice rather than with their trademark defense. The Chiefs, on the other hand, are aware of ball control as a weapon against a potent offense, displaying that blueprint against New Orleans. Jamaal Charles ran for 200+ that day. He has an average per carry in the six yard range for his career going back to his Texas Longhorns days. Good enough fer me.
OVER (last week 0-1/season 0-3)
My putrid mark with OVER selections ruins an otherwise stellar bunch of picks. I’m on SEA/CAR (43). Provided Marshawn Lynch runs the way he should against a porous run defense, opening things up for some big plays down field. Capitalizing on a few such plays will force Ron Rivera to cut Cam Newton loose – and that means points.
