Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 05:10 PMIndianapolis had a disastrous game against Minnesota last week at the point of attack. QB Peyton Manning was sacked three times in six plays. Counting the backups, the Colts allowed six sacks in 37 offensive snaps. Now they face on the most aggressive blitzing teams. TE Dallas Clark, who missed the opener, is probable.
New Eagles QB Michael Vick will not travel with the team. Pro Bowl running back Brian Westbrook is also out as it second string QB Kevin Kolb, LG Too Herremans, DE Trent Cole, CB Sheldon Brown, LB Omar Gaither and the brothers Stacy and Shawn Andrews. Philadelphia will have just one regular starter on the offensive line in this game, C Jamaal Jackson. A total of seven regulars are out for the Eagles.
Philadelphia is expected to play their starters for at least a half. The Colts of course will remain with their best defensive player Bob Sanders. Backup QB Jim Sorgi remains out. The Colts are also without starters K Adam Vinatieri, DB Raheem Brock, CB Kelvin Hayden, and DE Robert Mathis.
Starting QB Peyton Manning is actually campaigning for more playing time than he got in the preseason opener. Head coach Jim Caldwell said the starters will get about 20 plays this week.
The Cincinnati Bengals play at the New England Patriots. The Patriots range from a 6.5 to 7-point favorite with a total at 36 or 36.5, depending on the sportsbook.
Bengals starting QB Carson Palmer is out according to ESPN, but the Bengals have not officially ruled him out with his mildly sprained ankle. J.T. O’Sullivan will start and play 1 ½ quarters with Jordan Palmer playing the rest of the game. Their top pick RT Andre Smith is a holdout.
Cincinnati is 3-2 straight up in preseason series meetings. In his first action since the first quarter of the first regular season game last year, Tom Brady completed 10-of-15 passes for 100 yards and two touchdown tosses.
The Bengals only have one starter on the offensive line back at the same position from last year.
New England WR Wes Welker missed the Eagles game and three ensuing practices. He said he is ready to play but the decision is head coach Bill Belichick’s. DE Ty Warren also missed the last game, but it back practicing.
Several Patriots have said this may be the toughest camp ever. While Tom Brady is expected to start behind center, as per usual with Belichick, his number of snaps expected is unclear. However, Kevin O’Connell is expected to be the No. 2 QB not Andrew Walter. RB Fred Taylor, who also sat out the first game is probable.
As we approach the homestretch in the NBA, we celebrate that it’s a very profitable time for sharp players. This is in no small part because the oddsmakers adjust to false public perception. Betting urban legends are quite popular this time of the year.
As is the case in every sport, it’s the time of the season that Joeybagofdonuts looks at the playoff races and simply goes with the “team that needs it more”. Sharp players meanwhile will collect big time going with true spoilers against teams in must-win situations.
First off all let us define the terms. A “true spoiler” is an organization that has no chance of making the playoffs and whose biggest wins henceforth can only be raining on somebody else’s parade. “We are not talking about a top level team playing spoiler against the No. 9 team in the conference” emphasizes Curt Thomas, lead NBA handicapper of GodsTips, anchor of OffshoreInsiders.com
Likewise a “must win” applies “only to teams fighting for a playoff spot, not those simply jockeying for homecourt advantage,” adds Thomas.
Remember, bad teams have players fighting for their jobs in many cases. Fear is a great motivator and the desire to extend a seven-figure-a-year career can invigorate a player more than the thought of extending the season.
This is not necessarily across-the-board. A veteran team such as Minnesota could have their key players thinking of simply getting the season over with.
This is why in contests involving also-rans or desperate teams we take recent form much more into consideration than we do all other circumstances.
As is the case all year, deceptive straight-up records are exploited when compared to scoring margins. However, there are a lot more outplay factors this time of the year than any other point of the season because of the aforesaid false motivation perceptions knocking the line even more out of whack.
We can’t say it enough—straight up records is the most overused statistic in ATS handicapping. Successful betting isn’t about who wins the game, but who covers the spread. Those who keep the books in business pay so little attention to the much more significant margin statistic.
Let us move onward to more proactive betting secrets. Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio are veteran teams that will use the late-season to fine tune for the playoffs. We will look to fade those teams as huge chalks, especially against bad teams that have shown recent competitiveness. Again by that we mean close losses to quality teams, not necessarily straight up wins.
If we ever decided to do a sports gambling version of Snopes.com, we could start with late season NBA betting truths and myths.
In fact, lucky for you, we just did.
Amongst our permanent clients at OffshoreInsiders.com, the single most common question we get revolves around the position of “That system you been using is great, but doesn’t it seem like the parameters should point to the opposite pick?” So often our systems would be the converse to “conventional logic”. In gambling, acknowledging that “conventional logic” is almost always an oxymoron will put one on the right path to winning. Thus going against the grain is more times than not a stupendous line of attack.
As a for instance, many of our systems involve bad offenses going over, good and hot teams being go against and bad and cold teams being ATS goldmines. There are two huge rationales why this is the case.
The first answer is in the “should it not be the opposite?” line of non-thinking. Lines are made very much to adjust to public perception. Handicapping can be loosely defined as the art of finding the undervalued and overvalued teams. The teams at the top of the standings, even if they are a Cinderella team won’t fly under the radar too long. The public fears betting bottom feeders. As we discussed in our article “It is Good to Pick Bad” we synthesize the science of handicapping public perception.
Somewhat related though is the importance of what we call analyzing whether a team will reach their “threshold” or not. Nothing affects the pre-adjusted line (meaning before injuries, public perception and other considerations) than the two teams’ performances to date.
If someone could look into the proverbial crystal ball and tell you that both teams in an NBA game will shoot 10 percent above their season average, would you bet the over or the under? Chances are that you would happily invest in the over. Of course I know we preach a preponderance of evidence in handicapping, but I am trying to simplify the illustration.
Comparably in another game you had the two worst shooting teams in the NBA playing each other. Such hypothetical would put each of their field goal percentages at approximately 41 percent. Each team would need to hit just more than half their shots to exceed the aforestated threshold by 10 percentage points. However if it involved the two top shooting teams, that would put each team around the 48 percent mark meaning each team would have to shoot 58 percent to reach the exact same threshold. So in that comparison 58 percent shooting by both teams in one game is the equivalent of 51 percent in the other game.
How appropriate it’s called handicapping, because a team’s performance to date much like a “handicap” in your neighborhood beer bowling league is what the pointspread is based on.
I know a big time square player whom I will call Sal. Sal likes picking college hoop totals and one of his built in chestnuts is regurgitating, “I love the over in this game because both teams love to shoot the three point shot.”
“What’s the total Sal?” cohort Leo Shafto and I time and time again ask the dunderhead. Sal stammers, “It doesn’t matter, both teams will shoot a lot of threes.” Sal the Simpleton is oblivious to the high total, unfazed once he sees it and totally unwitting to the fact that to go over both teams will not only likely have to shoot a bunch of three-point shots, but exceed the high zenith and make an inordinate number to win his bet. This is especially the case to win based on the reasons Sal gave.
Systems that “make sense” to the uneducated eye are the ones that raise a red flag to the learned. Knowing “conventional logic” is an even bigger oxymoron in handicapping because oddsmakers are aware of public perception and knowing it’s easier to exceed a low threshold than a high threshold is indispensable wisdom.
As always system plays are only part of handicapping. We don’t consider a system to be statistically significant unless it has a Z-score of 4.0 or higher (statisticians consider 2.0 to be statistically significant. Or systems must have an ROI of 80 or above. But it is almost as important to be aware why systems work.
As we approach the final week of the college basketball regular season, which includes the major conference tournaments, it’s time to remind you of one of the great pitfalls gamblers make. That is to bet on the team that needs a win more.
Combine this with the public’s infatuation with betting on the better team, some of the best investment opportunities are forthcoming in the early days of March Madness betting simply by fading bubble teams.
Why are they great go-against teams for the sharp player? The previously stated motive is one of them. The linesmakers know that gamblers accept as true that the bubble teams will be more motivated. Thus, bettors are ready and willing to lay extra points.
But the fact is, if a team is on “the bubble” they haven’t been victorious often enough in such “must win” games. The squads that excel in pressure games have their NCAA at-large bid locked up by this time of the year.
The most opportune situation is when a bubble team is matched up against a squad in a pure spoiler role. Let’s clarify the relatively objective definitions. Not that we really need it, but the cheat-sheet we utilize for which teams qualify as “bubble” would be Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology on ESPN.com.
Lunardi essentially has 12 bubble teams: last four in, last four out and next four out. From a handicapping standpoint, the list gets smaller as the year goes on.
A team in a “pure spoiler role” is one that has no chance at an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Again, Bracketology is our favorite cheat sheet if there is any doubt, though we of course follow college basketball to the point where we know who’s certainly in, who is out, and who is on “the bubble”.
One of our Golden Rules is to bet on inconsistent teams to continue to be inconsistent, while the public seems to believe unpredictable teams will somehow improve in stress situations.
When Team Bubble is going up against inferior “spoiler” teams, they are going to be overpriced because of public perception. We do caution that while betting against bubble teams is certainly our strong bias, as always the angle is merely part of our preponderance of data scrutinized before finalizing a bet.
In so far as over/under plays, we also lean towards betting the under in such games. In spoiler versus bubble team circumstances, there is plenty of motivation for both squads. Intensity shows up positively on the defensive end, but the angst of a must-win game shows up negatively with sloppy play on the offensive end.
The author Joe Duffy is CEO of OffshoreInsiders.com.
Bulletin Board Material
There is some value to handicapping the intangible of so-called “bulletin board material”. That is one team with a player calling out the other team. However sometimes it can benefit the trash talking team, other times a detriment. There is a certain physiological warfare and we find a veteran player questioning the big game capabilities of a key young player on another team is does rather a player when things are going well.
Ironically the other extreme is that a well disciplined team can also be flustered. The famed guarantees of Mark Messier, Joe Namath, and Jimmy Johnson are examples of the consistent and superior teams being taken off their single-mindedness.
One of the best assertions I’ve heard is from someone who believes handicapping the effects of such can have great value in football. He believes practice preparation is much underrated—we do too as we’ve previously spoken of what great precursors “great week” or “poor week” of practices are. He believes “bulletin board material” increases focus and determination during the week more than having a direct affect after kickoff.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s worse to call out underachieving teams or players that need a wake-up call. Why light a fire under Randy Moss? It’s the old why wake up a sleeping dog syndrome.
Conversely a top shelf team didn’t become that good by waiting for some blowhard on the other team to provoke them. From a “face saving” standpoint, there are risks to calling out a much more exceptional opponent However in 1994 when the Cowboys Jimmy Johnson took his dog Pokes to Candlestick Park and proclaimed “put it in three-inch headlines. We will win” he proved correct. As Johnson correctly stated years later, he believes he got underneath the skin of the usually clearheaded collection of veteran future Hall-of-Famers as they engaged the Cowboys in a pre-game near brawl.
Thriving teams are more likely to be distracted by being on the giving or receiving end of calling out. Struggling teams are more likely to be awoken. In short, a big favorite does not need to have the boat rocked by a braggadocio on either team.
The Dictionary as a Handicapping Tool
With conference tournaments followed by the Big Dance upon us at OffshoreInsiders.com, it is imperative we warn you against yet another dunce assumption that gamblers make about neutral site games, be it in football and basketball. Neutral according to the dictionary means “Not aligned with, supporting, or favoring either side in a war, dispute, or contest.”
The dumb cluck investor overplays road statistics when weighing performance to date. This is a gross misapplication. A road game is a game on the opponent’s court. The oddsmakers absolutely are prepared for this common delusion. A neutral court is just that—it’s no more a road game than a home game.
Of course we consider if one team has to travel much further or is bringing along a much larger supporting section, but that’s part of the research. And under that circumstance one team’s neutral game is more like a home than a road battle.
But the presupposition that one should handicap each team’s road performance disproportionately is not based on any factual historical data or simple common sense. Wise men handicap neutral games like the dictionary defines them, not as if each team is playing a road contest.