Dogs Rule - NFL Week #3 & #4

NFL Week #3 and #4 were all about the dogs. Week #3 dogs were 11-5 ATS and the trend continued in Week #4 as dogs were 9-5. D$ has been leaning on the favs a bit too much leading to less than desirable results. Let's see if we get this straightened out heading into Week #5.

 

Gambling lesson learned from Week #4:
Teams coming off a straight-up loss who are being favoured by more than 14 points rarely cover.   (Especially if the dog is coming off a loss.)   Classic examples of this theory can be seen this past week with Green Bay +14.5 vs Lions and the Saints +14.5 vs Panthers.  In Week #3 it was the Bills being 15 point dogs to the Patriots.  The theory behind this play is that the favoured team is not playing that well at the moment, which is why they lost, and asking them to lay an enormous amount of points may be asking too much for them.

 

Looks like we have a very tough slate of games this week. New format has D$ picking his 5 best bets each week. The idea is similar to the Las Vegas Hilton Super Contest which Bill Simmons mentions regularly in his podcast. Definitely worthy of checking out on Saturday morning if you are struggling with your picks. http://www.lvhilton.com/Supercontest

 

St. Louis (+3) @ Lions  - Total 42
Sam Bradford appears to be the real deal in his first month in the NFL as he has helped the Rams become respectable and already double their win total from last year. Last week they took the Seahawks to the woodshed and beat them - nothing flukey here folks. The RAM defense is not terrible now - and don't laugh - but they have an outside shot of winning the NFC West with a .500 record. The Lions play hard every game and I would like to back them here, but they don't deserve to be laying points to anyone until they have won a game or two. With Stafford out, the Rams got quite a bit of momentum, and I'll take the points in what should be a high scoring (read: OVER) affair. Rams 31, LIONS 28.

 

Chicago (-3) @ Carolina
Jay Culter's first half in the Monday night game exposed some major issues withe Bears offensive line who played terribly.  Teams with a good pass rush will cause Culter to have to reach for the Advil bottle on Monday morning - which is why the motivated Giants won that game.   The Kitties, simply don't have any pass rush and this means a motivated Culter (he is scheduled to start), will have more time to find his receivers.  We don't see the Kitties getting up for this game as they put everything into their big game the previous week against the Saints and came up short.  This line would have been Bears by 4 or 6 a week before and I like them to keep Carolina winless in 2010.   Bears 24,  Kitties 13

 

NY Giants @ Houston (-3)
The Giants will get some love after their impressive Sunday night Culter beat down but the fact remains this team has some significant flaws.  Vegas is saying these two teams are even with the Texans only being favoured by 3, which doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.  The Texans will get back Defensive Rookie of the Year LB Cushing after serving his suspension for taking performance enhancing drugs.  He will be extremely motivated to stop the Giants strength which is their run game.  With the Giants being unable to run Mario Williams will be in Eli's face like he was against his brother Peyton in Week #1.   Giants 16 ,  Houston 31

 

New Orleans (-6.5) @ Arizona
This matchup is too hard to pass up if you get the right side of the spread here.  If you can get 6.5 I like the Saints who will have a QB mismatch as Arizona is now turning to undrafted rookie QB Max Hull to lead them into this game.  Arizona is lucky to be 2 and 2 and we'll see a motivated Saints squad after two less than stellar performances at home.  Saints 23,  Arizona 10

 

Last game still up in the air at the moment.....

• Kinda like ATL -3 @ Cleveland, especially if Delhome is expected to be the starter.
• The 49ers have been my kriptonite, but look juicy as favourites -3 over the wounded and travelling Eagles.
• But I really like Denver to cover 7.5 vs the Ravens.   Ravens are set for a let down game and if you can get on the 'right side' of the line this could be a strong play for Denver squad that is getting lots of love from the vegas sharps at the moment.

 We'll have to examine this last game as we get closer to the weekend.