Analyzing early NFL divisional line moves
Chad Millman
ESPN Insider
On Sunday night, I was talking to John Avello, the bookmaker at the Wynn in Las Vegas. He was driving home, shortly after the Seattle Seahawks had beaten the Washington Redskins to become the fourth favorite in four NFL playoff games to cover. I was on a speaker phone and he was driving through a tunnel, so every other word was interrupted with static. But there was no mistaking the message: With favorites beating the numbers at a rate that make a bookmaker's stomach bleed, the folks running the show in Vegas are anxious for the season to end.
"There is not much time left in the year," Avello told me. "Then we can get rid of football until next year."
No one's going to cry for Las Vegas bookmakers, but this weekend was truly a microcosm of a strange year. As the Los Angeles Times reported recently, during one particularly bad November weekend full of favorites covering, the 12 MGM-owned sports books took a seven-figure hit and had to summon emergency reserves of cash to pay off its losses.
"That first game this Saturday between the Bengals and Texans didn't kill us," Jeff Sherman, a sports book manager at the Las Vegas Hotel, told me Sunday night as he screamed above the din of customers cashing Seahawks tickets. "But it's the liability you see compounding over the weekend. By Sunday, we couldn't stop writing Ravens tickets. The money for them just poured in."
It has been nastier than a Trent Williams shove to Richard Sherman's face behind the counters, and there aren't any match-ups this weekend that will make them feel any less queasy come game day. Because, between the Green Bay Packers, the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos, three of the most public teams in the NFL will be in play.
"Some teams just have it, they will always get the money," Sherman said. "And those are the teams."
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All three games happen to be rematches from earlier this season, with this weekend's home teams having won all three games. And the lines that the books opened not only reflect those results but how they anticipate public perception will impact the action.
[h=3]Houston Texans at New England Patriots[/h]
The LVH closed New England-Houston at Patriots minus-6 when those two teams played on lettermen jacket night less than a month ago, which wound up as a 42-14 Pats win. The game not only exposed the Texans, it started their slide from No. 1 to No. 3 seed in the playoffs. This week, they opened as 9.5-point dogs. And, almost immediately, professional bettors took the Texans. "For just a little bit," Sherman said. Avello said he expects the same: "But it doesn't matter. We will want to be on the side of the sharps because of all the public money that will come in on New England. And no amount of wiseguy money is going to cancel that out."
[h=3]Baltimore Ravens at Denver Broncos[/h]The same is true of Denver and Baltimore, which opened with the Broncos as nine-point favorites. Back on Dec. 16, the Broncos went into Baltimore as three-point favorites, the fifth time this year they were road faves (they went 4-1) and blasted the Ravens by 14 points. And, honestly, it wasn't even that close. Denver was up 31-3 after three quarters. This had been the Broncos' M.O. all season, as they went 10-6 against the spread, including 4-0 to end the year. In three of those last four games, by the way, they were favored by more than they had been -- 10 points against Oakland, 11 against Cleveland and 17 against Kansas City -- at any point in the season.
[h=3]Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers[/h]
The Packers, meanwhile, opened as six-point favorites over San Francisco in Week 1 of the season, a game they lost 30-22. "We actually got a lot of money on San Fran in that game," Sherman said. But the Niners are a different team with a different quarterback that, in San Fran's last prime-time game, got round-housed by the Seahawks by nearly 30 points. San Francisco is three-point favorites against Green Bay. "The Packers are one of those 'What have you done for me lately?' teams," Sherman said. What he means is: They are a public team of whom the overwhelming impression is that they are very, very hot. "Not sure why. It seems they are getting a lot of credit for beating a team whose quarterback was pulled just hours before the game. I actually thought this line should have opened higher. But we are already seeing money on the dog at three."
(For what it's worth, Avello told me he had taken one substantial bet in the 24 hours since he had posted the Packers-Niners line: It was on the Niners.)
[h=3]Seattle Seahawks at Atlanta Falcons[/h]
Heading into wild-card weekend, the most interesting line on the board was Seahawks-Redskins. The Seahawks, a team that hadn't gotten much public attention until a couple of 50-point games late in the season, a team that went 3-5 on the road this year, opened as three-point favorites on the road. "And that number was a little inflated," Bob Scucci of The Orleans told me. "We were expecting a lot of Seattle support so we wanted to balance it out."
This weekend, the story will be the same. "We hung Seattle plus-two, other places hung plus-2.5," Sherman said. "We just thought if we hung the three people would take it. A lot of people are going to believe in them. This is going to be a game we have good handle on and I don't think it will get to three. It's just going to hover right where it is."
And, no matter what happens, when it's over, the end of the season will be that much closer.
</offer>
Chad Millman
ESPN Insider
On Sunday night, I was talking to John Avello, the bookmaker at the Wynn in Las Vegas. He was driving home, shortly after the Seattle Seahawks had beaten the Washington Redskins to become the fourth favorite in four NFL playoff games to cover. I was on a speaker phone and he was driving through a tunnel, so every other word was interrupted with static. But there was no mistaking the message: With favorites beating the numbers at a rate that make a bookmaker's stomach bleed, the folks running the show in Vegas are anxious for the season to end.
"There is not much time left in the year," Avello told me. "Then we can get rid of football until next year."
No one's going to cry for Las Vegas bookmakers, but this weekend was truly a microcosm of a strange year. As the Los Angeles Times reported recently, during one particularly bad November weekend full of favorites covering, the 12 MGM-owned sports books took a seven-figure hit and had to summon emergency reserves of cash to pay off its losses.
"That first game this Saturday between the Bengals and Texans didn't kill us," Jeff Sherman, a sports book manager at the Las Vegas Hotel, told me Sunday night as he screamed above the din of customers cashing Seahawks tickets. "But it's the liability you see compounding over the weekend. By Sunday, we couldn't stop writing Ravens tickets. The money for them just poured in."
It has been nastier than a Trent Williams shove to Richard Sherman's face behind the counters, and there aren't any match-ups this weekend that will make them feel any less queasy come game day. Because, between the Green Bay Packers, the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos, three of the most public teams in the NFL will be in play.
"Some teams just have it, they will always get the money," Sherman said. "And those are the teams."
<offer>
All three games happen to be rematches from earlier this season, with this weekend's home teams having won all three games. And the lines that the books opened not only reflect those results but how they anticipate public perception will impact the action.
[h=3]Houston Texans at New England Patriots[/h]
The LVH closed New England-Houston at Patriots minus-6 when those two teams played on lettermen jacket night less than a month ago, which wound up as a 42-14 Pats win. The game not only exposed the Texans, it started their slide from No. 1 to No. 3 seed in the playoffs. This week, they opened as 9.5-point dogs. And, almost immediately, professional bettors took the Texans. "For just a little bit," Sherman said. Avello said he expects the same: "But it doesn't matter. We will want to be on the side of the sharps because of all the public money that will come in on New England. And no amount of wiseguy money is going to cancel that out."
[h=3]Baltimore Ravens at Denver Broncos[/h]The same is true of Denver and Baltimore, which opened with the Broncos as nine-point favorites. Back on Dec. 16, the Broncos went into Baltimore as three-point favorites, the fifth time this year they were road faves (they went 4-1) and blasted the Ravens by 14 points. And, honestly, it wasn't even that close. Denver was up 31-3 after three quarters. This had been the Broncos' M.O. all season, as they went 10-6 against the spread, including 4-0 to end the year. In three of those last four games, by the way, they were favored by more than they had been -- 10 points against Oakland, 11 against Cleveland and 17 against Kansas City -- at any point in the season.
[h=3]Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers[/h]
The Packers, meanwhile, opened as six-point favorites over San Francisco in Week 1 of the season, a game they lost 30-22. "We actually got a lot of money on San Fran in that game," Sherman said. But the Niners are a different team with a different quarterback that, in San Fran's last prime-time game, got round-housed by the Seahawks by nearly 30 points. San Francisco is three-point favorites against Green Bay. "The Packers are one of those 'What have you done for me lately?' teams," Sherman said. What he means is: They are a public team of whom the overwhelming impression is that they are very, very hot. "Not sure why. It seems they are getting a lot of credit for beating a team whose quarterback was pulled just hours before the game. I actually thought this line should have opened higher. But we are already seeing money on the dog at three."
(For what it's worth, Avello told me he had taken one substantial bet in the 24 hours since he had posted the Packers-Niners line: It was on the Niners.)
[h=3]Seattle Seahawks at Atlanta Falcons[/h]
Heading into wild-card weekend, the most interesting line on the board was Seahawks-Redskins. The Seahawks, a team that hadn't gotten much public attention until a couple of 50-point games late in the season, a team that went 3-5 on the road this year, opened as three-point favorites on the road. "And that number was a little inflated," Bob Scucci of The Orleans told me. "We were expecting a lot of Seattle support so we wanted to balance it out."
This weekend, the story will be the same. "We hung Seattle plus-two, other places hung plus-2.5," Sherman said. "We just thought if we hung the three people would take it. A lot of people are going to believe in them. This is going to be a game we have good handle on and I don't think it will get to three. It's just going to hover right where it is."
And, no matter what happens, when it's over, the end of the season will be that much closer.
</offer>
