Fresh from a couple of posts criticising people who didn’t pick Carolina following on from Drew Brees injury, we have a similar situation this coming into week 4 in the NFL. The Colts are at home to the Jags and Andrew Luck is an injury doubt, he hasn’t properly trained all week. The Supercontest line is the Colts -9, and at the time of writing it is doubtful that he’ll play. The proper bookies currently still don’t have any lines up for that match.
So suiting up at QB for the Colts will be a hurt Andrew Luck, or 40 year old Matt Hasselbeck who hasn’t started a NFL game since November 2012….ok then. Considering either one of those options I’m taking the Jaguars +9.
The Saints are at -3 at home to Dallas. Weeden will start for Dallas while Brees is expected to be back for New Orleans. Even with an injured Brees, I don’t want to back the Saints -3. So I’m staying away from this one.
Next up are 2 teams that I don’t think are getting enough respect by the market: The Bengals -4 at home to KC and Carolina -3 at Tampa Bay.
Bengals -4 at home to Kansas City is effectively saying that on a neutral field the Bengals would only be favoured by a point or 2. I’m not having that, the Bengals should be favoured by more. Cincinnati are underrated.
Similarly the Panthers are only at -3 against a team that is terrible, even at home, in Tampa Bay. Admittedly the Panthers are 3-0 without playing anyone good. But this is a team that has legit playoff aspirations. Another week supporting SuperCam.
Final picks are the Browns+7.5 at San Diego and the Rams +7 at Arizona. San Diego’s performance thus far don’t merit a line of -7.5 points. And while I like Arizona, I think they’re going to the playoffs for sure, the Rams are no mugs and are a step up from the 3 duffers they’ve played so far.
Other thoughts: 2 other potential picks were Oakland -3 at Chicago, and Washington +3 at home to Houston. Even though it’s approximately 34 years since Oakland were favoured on the road, they’re playing a stinker of a team that I think have given up on this season with the trade of Jared Allen for a 6th round pick. Washington are a team that isn’t as bad as what they were feared to be and everyone still seems to love Chip Kelly and his amazing hype machine er I mean Offence.
I’ve got in early with some real money on the following underdogs at prices that were too high on the ML: Minnesota, Browns, Rams and Washington.
BS ATS stat of the week
I read this on another site as part of their reasoning to back the Giants +5.5 at Buffalo:
Buffalo are 7-28 ATS following a game against Miami
Wow. Just wow… There’s a glimpse inside the mind of square.