[h=1]NFL Gambling Opus No. 3[/h][h=3]Insider's gambling expert covers all the topics bettors need to know[/h]By Chad Millman | ESPN Insider
CJ Hardy is, by all accounts, a good and decent guy, living the life that many grow up wanting to live.
He married his college sweetheart, Chelsie, this past October, seven years after they met as students at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Their wedding day happened to fall on her birthday. Storybook, right? He earned his CPA and his CMA and went to work in finance for an Oshkosh company, punching numbers into spreadsheets. He loves the Badgers and the Packers and is grateful that, as a Green Bay native, he finally earned Packers season tickets this year, only 28 years after being put on the waiting list, which happened on the day he was born.
But, as good and decent a guy as CJ is and as charmed as his life seems to be and as much as I am a sucker for a romantic tale, especially around the holidays, those are not the reasons you should admire him. It is for one reason, and one reason alone. And since this is Gambling Opus III, the lightly anticipated follow-up to the mega hit Gambling Opus I and the slightly-less interesting, slightly-less well received sequel, Gambling Opus II, you can bet it has something to do with wagering.
CJ did not grow up as a gambler. It wasn't until college that he became corrupted. "I was probably 19," he emailed me. "Some friends in the same dorm had a website where you just had to be 18 to make bets." Because CJ is so good and so decent, his interest has never become anything more than a hobby. "I am not a huge gambler in dollar amounts, it just makes the games more exciting when I am invested in the results," he wrote. "Like Cowherd says, I am betting lunch money/beer money, not college funds."
Over the years, CJ has co-mingled his intense fantasy and betting interests, entering multiple leagues and an against-the-spread pick 'em contest modeled after the Las Vegas Hotel SuperContest. Instead of the SuperContest's $1,500 buy-in and required in-person sign up, CJ's contest may or may not cost a very small amount of units and he just has to send his five weekly ATS picks to his buddy Fenster (kudos to Fenster, by the way, who tipped me off to the story you are about to read).
Last year, CJ won the whole thing. This year, however, he has been struggling. Blame the wedding plans for distracting him. (Hey, Chelsie, that was just me making a judgment, not CJ making excuses.) "I pride myself on making my picks each week, no matter how bad of a year I am having," he said.
Which is why, at 2:35 in the afternoon on Oct. 19, 25 minutes before he was going to walk down the aisle, take Chelsie's hand, look her in the eye and say, "Let's do this thing," a swarm of butterflies more powerful than a Wisconsin blizzard landed just beneath his rib cage. It wasn't the lifelong commitment; Chelsie is a beautiful girl who is getting a graduate degree in Science in Taxation at UW-Milwaukee. CJ knows that; as he told me, he "outkicked his coverage." His heart raced for the first time all day because of this: He had forgotten to send Fenster his picks, and the Friday night deadline had passed.
As CJ recalled: "It was the groomsmen and myself in the church waiting our turns to get those flowers pinned to our suits. My co-best man Jake was making fun of me for something, I don't recall exactly what but I think it was just an attempt to keep me calm. But whatever he said just made my stomach drop and I replied back, 'Oh no, I forgot to email Fenster my picks!'
"I looked at my phone for the time. I knew I didn't have time to actually look at the lines while all the pre-wedding photos were still going on. So I quickly tried to think of how to pick five games as fast as possible. Well, I thought since I was randomly picking my five picks without any research, I might as well keep the logic random for this week and told Jake I want the first five underdogs listed on the board.
"Jake told me he'd text Fenster exactly what I just said, first five dogs listed. He also warned us that we should all step back since the combination of him being Jewish, in a Catholic Church and texting bets might cause lighting to strike him."
His lineup, for Week 7, looked like this:
Jets +4
Jaguars +7.5
Texans +6.5
Bengals +2.5
Bills +8
For the rest of the night, CJ and Chelsie and their family and friends celebrated the couple's new life together, with the groom giving only passing thoughts to his picks and whether or not the Badgers would cover against Illinois. The next morning, back at their home, the newlyweds began to unwrap wedding gifts. CJ opened up a notebook and grabbed a pencil. In the margin he wrote "1" and next to that put the gift and the name of the giver, to make writing thank-you notes easier. A good and decent exercise. As he made the list, "1, 2, 3 ..." CJ let out a giggle, loud enough for Chelsie to wonder. So he explained it all: The church, the clock winding down, the picks, the walk down the aisle minutes away. She laughed and asked, "How did you have time for that?"
Later that day, among the bevy of gifts he received, CJ also got four live dogs, with the Bills, Bengals, Texans and Jets covering. It didn't help him in the standings, as he's still fighting his way out of last place. But that record hasn't stopped him from getting his picks in every Sunday. In a couple of weeks, the day after Chelsie graduates, they're going to take their honeymoon. Fourteen days through Dublin, London and Paris.
"I've already made sure my cell phone will have an international data plan," he told me. "So I can send in my picks while away."
That is a good and decent thing to do.
You know what else is good and decent? A third Opus that covers who the wiseguys will love over the next month, who they will hate, which players will be the most valuable to gamblers and why totals are every bettor's new best friend. It will be the kind of column that makes you want to get married ... in Vegas.
[h=3]Teams wiseguys love[/h]
1. Buffalo Bills
Remember when EJ Manuel started the year with a near miracle win over New England? Remember when he beat the Panthers in the final seconds of Week 2? At that moment, a lot more people were buying stock in Manuel than Cam Newton. How impressive do those two games look now? Forget for a minute that it would be two months before he completed more than 56 percent of his passes again, a run that included a month of missed games because of a knee injury. Even though he was showing his rookiehood, the Bills' offense moved more effectively with his playmaking ability. Without him, they became that team someone said Jon Bon Jovi wanted to buy. Jon Bon denied it.
The truth is, their 5.1 yards per play allowed is tied for 10th in the league and their 4.2 yards per rush is better than New England, Kansas City and New Orleans. The team started 5-2 ATS, has fallen to 6-6 and, in the final weeks of the year against Miami and at New England, when Manuel settles into a rhythm again, the Bills will have long been forgotten by the public.
2. Houston Texans
Every week the Texans have gotten wiseguy support and every week they have let bettors down. Based on stats, they are the right side. Their defense is among the best in the league in total yards allowed and just out of the top 10 in rushing yards per play and passing yards per play allowed. On offense they possess the ball for just less than 32 minutes a game, sixth best in the league. The problem is that they are minus-12 in turnovers, and more than a handful of those have been returned for touchdowns. Every wiseguy will tell you that turnovers are one of those stats in which there is eventually a regression to the mean.
Bettors are going to bank that some of that regression will happen in the final month of the season -- that trend may have started against New England in Week 13 -- especially when the square's perception of Houston is at its lowest and it faces public faves Denver and Indy.
3. St. Louis Rams
Over the final month of the season St. Louis will play Arizona (away), New Orleans (home), Tampa Bay (home) and Seattle (home). They will be underdogs in three of those four games, but that is reflective of a season's worth of public perception. The reality is that this team, while just 2-3 since Oct. 28, has been a lot better the second half of the season. Two of those losses were slugfests to Seattle and Tennessee and the third was a field goal fest until late in the second half. The Rams are the youngest team in the league and Jeff Fisher historically has been a wiseguy fave because of the way his teams consistently improve. This year, after an 0-4 ATS start, they have gone 5-3. But the public has ignored them because they've been so far out of the playoff race.
[h=3]Super Bowl stock market[/h]
<!-- begin inline 2 -->[h=4]Super Bowl XLVIII odds (courtesy of LVH)[/h]
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[h=3]Green is the color of ...[/h]
It's not what you are thinking. I'm talking about the color of your face when you've had bad shellfish or just seen a picture of the MRSA virus in action or happened to turn off the TV thinking your Week 12 Broncos bet was safe only to wake up and find out you'd been Brady'd. It's also what the Gambling Opus has named the final 15 minutes of an NFL game, when your hard-earned money is won or lost.
All season long Jeff Gold, crack ESPN The Mag researcher and regular contributor to Insider, has been tracking how many games are within a score of the point spread heading into the fourth quarter. Last year, the number was 125 of the 256 games, or about 49 percent. So far this season, through 192 games, 96 of them (exactly half) were just a botched snap, Hail Mary, missed tackle, phantom call or rookie mistake from covering. Or not.
But wait, to really bring out that bright shade of green you wear so well, Jeff dug a little further and tracked how many games were still too close for comfort in the final five minutes. The tally: 86 of 192 games. This past weekend alone, nine games could have gone either way as the final gun neared.
So yes, my degenerate friends, there is no right side, only good luck and bad luck.
[h=3]Ain't no number high enough[/h]
Everyone has their "A-ha" moment. And while Oprah has turned the idea into a movement and practically trademarked the idea, these moments of inspiration and clarity have been knocking people on the head for centuries, literally (see Newton, Isaac).
Personally, I had my own "A-ha" moment this year. It happened during the second half of the Broncos-Cowboys game in Week 5. The total for the game was 56, and with a little more than seven minutes left in the third quarter, the score was Denver 35-Dallas 27. More than 22 minutes remained in the entire game, and the absurdly high over/under had already been decided. We can all agree that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that game was when I said to myself there is no such thing as a total too low anymore. Scoring in the NFL is like the temperature in the atmosphere, it's only going up.
Back in the day, before the NFL decided playing defense was at best a nuisance and at worst a mortal danger, over/under bets were mostly played by those in the extreme ends of the gambling world: Specialists who put in the extra time studying scoring patterns and the once-a-year squares who went to Vegas, hit the books, enjoyed the free drinks and cheered for something, anything, to happen. But in the past few years, thanks to Internet machines and the accessibility of information, everyone has become a bit more savvy. The big data revolution has leveled the playing field, or at least made more people think of totals as an investment opportunity. Now, as The Orleans bookmaker Bob Scucci has said repeatedly on my podcast, on any given Sunday over/unders represent as much action as sides.
What bettors -- casual, professional and the increasingly large swath of people who regularly gamble on sports but don't necessarily do it for a living -- saw was that scoring in the NFL was increasing. Thanks to the Stats & Info group here at ESPN, I know that, in 2003, teams combined for a little more than 41 points per game. Over the next six seasons, through 2009, the number was relatively static. It peaked at 44.1 in 2008, then dropped more than a full point the next year, to 42.9. But, in 2010, it popped up to 44.1 PPG and it has steadily increased the past three years. In 2013, teams are scoring a record 46.5 points per game. With 78 50-plus point games so far this year, and 64 games left to go, there is a chance we will see more than 90 50-plus point games, the highest in the past decade.
Naturally, bookmakers have adjusted for this inflation in scoring. Take a look at this chart below that the SportsInsights.com team put together for me that shows how totals have increased the past 10 years:
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]NFL Totals since 2003[/h]
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<!-- end inline 3 -->Bookmakers are no dummies. Since 2007, the average over/under has jumped four points. Meanwhile, this year they have posted totals of 50 or more 28 times through 13 weeks, pacing them ahead of the 35 they posted last year, the most in the past decade. By the way, eight of those games have involved the Broncos, whose totals have exceeded 50 points 10 times.
And yet, even these adjustments may not be enough. Over bettors this year are hitting at a 56 percent clip (99-78-2), according to SportsInsights.com. At that I just have to scratch my head and say, "A-ha."
[h=3]The Millman Rankings[/h]
I should be taking a victory lap. Because, if you paid attention to the Opus, you would have known from Version II this past October that Aaron Rodgers was the NFL's most valuable player against the point spread, worth 10 points as determined by me and my Millman Rankings cohort, Evan Abrams. And if you were paying attention, you would have noticed that immediately after Rodgers broke his collarbone on Nov. 4, the line for the Packers-Eagles game six days later shifted from Green Bay minus-10 to Green Bay minus-1.5. And then it dropped to Green Bay minus-1. And then to pick. And by kickoff the Eagles were actually favored by a point, in a game they went on to win by two touchdowns.
Of course, because you read the Opus, you knew there were a couple of points worth of value from the initial adjustment and jumped all over it. That is what The Millman Rankings and the PSVAR metric are supposed to show you. Keep the updated version with you wherever you go for the next month. Then you can be ready to make a play on a moment's injury notice and build your Christmas bankroll.
<!-- begin inline 4 -->[h=4]The Millman Rankings[/h]PSVAR (point spread value above replacement) metric.
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[h=3]Teams wiseguys hate[/h]
1. New York Giants
Right behind the Texans, with a TO differential of minus-11, are the Giants. And yet, regression to the mean is not a factor wiseguys are considering when it comes to New York. That's because, well, the Giants are a pretty crummy team. There is no redeeming statistical measure for New York, as there is with Houston, to indicate that this team has untapped value. The Giants are 23rd in total yards per play on offense and convert just 35 percent of third downs, 25th in the league. To make matters worse, the Giants went on a four-game win streak and then played the Cowboys close, making the public think they might be better than their record.
2. New England Patriots
New England's comeback win over Denver didn't just cement Tom Brady's legacy as this generation's QB-you-want-to-win-one-game title over Peyton Manning, it created a halo that will last the rest of the season. And their remaining games -- against Cleveland, Miami, Baltimore and Buffalo, teams wiseguys have found value in this season -- reek of stinky, overinflated traps.
3. Kansas City Chiefs
Oh, how fickle bettors can be. In Gambling Opus I, I crowned the Chiefs the "preseason wiseguy champion." No team had seen as much season win-total action as Kansas City. And through the first few weeks of this season, as the Chiefs rolled to a 5-1 ATS start, plenty of wiseguys cashed in. Then, by mid-October, when us squares decided Kansas City might be for real, the wiseguys turned their backs. Since that 5-1 ATS start, they are 1-5. That won't change in the last month of the season, especially when Kansas City goes on the road, likely as favorites, against Washington and Oakland. Ladies and degenerates, the Kansas City Chiefs are your regular season, overinflated, walk-the-other-way champions.
CJ Hardy is, by all accounts, a good and decent guy, living the life that many grow up wanting to live.
He married his college sweetheart, Chelsie, this past October, seven years after they met as students at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Their wedding day happened to fall on her birthday. Storybook, right? He earned his CPA and his CMA and went to work in finance for an Oshkosh company, punching numbers into spreadsheets. He loves the Badgers and the Packers and is grateful that, as a Green Bay native, he finally earned Packers season tickets this year, only 28 years after being put on the waiting list, which happened on the day he was born.
But, as good and decent a guy as CJ is and as charmed as his life seems to be and as much as I am a sucker for a romantic tale, especially around the holidays, those are not the reasons you should admire him. It is for one reason, and one reason alone. And since this is Gambling Opus III, the lightly anticipated follow-up to the mega hit Gambling Opus I and the slightly-less interesting, slightly-less well received sequel, Gambling Opus II, you can bet it has something to do with wagering.
CJ did not grow up as a gambler. It wasn't until college that he became corrupted. "I was probably 19," he emailed me. "Some friends in the same dorm had a website where you just had to be 18 to make bets." Because CJ is so good and so decent, his interest has never become anything more than a hobby. "I am not a huge gambler in dollar amounts, it just makes the games more exciting when I am invested in the results," he wrote. "Like Cowherd says, I am betting lunch money/beer money, not college funds."
Over the years, CJ has co-mingled his intense fantasy and betting interests, entering multiple leagues and an against-the-spread pick 'em contest modeled after the Las Vegas Hotel SuperContest. Instead of the SuperContest's $1,500 buy-in and required in-person sign up, CJ's contest may or may not cost a very small amount of units and he just has to send his five weekly ATS picks to his buddy Fenster (kudos to Fenster, by the way, who tipped me off to the story you are about to read).
Last year, CJ won the whole thing. This year, however, he has been struggling. Blame the wedding plans for distracting him. (Hey, Chelsie, that was just me making a judgment, not CJ making excuses.) "I pride myself on making my picks each week, no matter how bad of a year I am having," he said.
Which is why, at 2:35 in the afternoon on Oct. 19, 25 minutes before he was going to walk down the aisle, take Chelsie's hand, look her in the eye and say, "Let's do this thing," a swarm of butterflies more powerful than a Wisconsin blizzard landed just beneath his rib cage. It wasn't the lifelong commitment; Chelsie is a beautiful girl who is getting a graduate degree in Science in Taxation at UW-Milwaukee. CJ knows that; as he told me, he "outkicked his coverage." His heart raced for the first time all day because of this: He had forgotten to send Fenster his picks, and the Friday night deadline had passed.
As CJ recalled: "It was the groomsmen and myself in the church waiting our turns to get those flowers pinned to our suits. My co-best man Jake was making fun of me for something, I don't recall exactly what but I think it was just an attempt to keep me calm. But whatever he said just made my stomach drop and I replied back, 'Oh no, I forgot to email Fenster my picks!'
"I looked at my phone for the time. I knew I didn't have time to actually look at the lines while all the pre-wedding photos were still going on. So I quickly tried to think of how to pick five games as fast as possible. Well, I thought since I was randomly picking my five picks without any research, I might as well keep the logic random for this week and told Jake I want the first five underdogs listed on the board.
"Jake told me he'd text Fenster exactly what I just said, first five dogs listed. He also warned us that we should all step back since the combination of him being Jewish, in a Catholic Church and texting bets might cause lighting to strike him."
His lineup, for Week 7, looked like this:
Jets +4
Jaguars +7.5
Texans +6.5
Bengals +2.5
Bills +8
For the rest of the night, CJ and Chelsie and their family and friends celebrated the couple's new life together, with the groom giving only passing thoughts to his picks and whether or not the Badgers would cover against Illinois. The next morning, back at their home, the newlyweds began to unwrap wedding gifts. CJ opened up a notebook and grabbed a pencil. In the margin he wrote "1" and next to that put the gift and the name of the giver, to make writing thank-you notes easier. A good and decent exercise. As he made the list, "1, 2, 3 ..." CJ let out a giggle, loud enough for Chelsie to wonder. So he explained it all: The church, the clock winding down, the picks, the walk down the aisle minutes away. She laughed and asked, "How did you have time for that?"
Later that day, among the bevy of gifts he received, CJ also got four live dogs, with the Bills, Bengals, Texans and Jets covering. It didn't help him in the standings, as he's still fighting his way out of last place. But that record hasn't stopped him from getting his picks in every Sunday. In a couple of weeks, the day after Chelsie graduates, they're going to take their honeymoon. Fourteen days through Dublin, London and Paris.
"I've already made sure my cell phone will have an international data plan," he told me. "So I can send in my picks while away."
That is a good and decent thing to do.
You know what else is good and decent? A third Opus that covers who the wiseguys will love over the next month, who they will hate, which players will be the most valuable to gamblers and why totals are every bettor's new best friend. It will be the kind of column that makes you want to get married ... in Vegas.
1. Buffalo Bills
Remember when EJ Manuel started the year with a near miracle win over New England? Remember when he beat the Panthers in the final seconds of Week 2? At that moment, a lot more people were buying stock in Manuel than Cam Newton. How impressive do those two games look now? Forget for a minute that it would be two months before he completed more than 56 percent of his passes again, a run that included a month of missed games because of a knee injury. Even though he was showing his rookiehood, the Bills' offense moved more effectively with his playmaking ability. Without him, they became that team someone said Jon Bon Jovi wanted to buy. Jon Bon denied it.
The truth is, their 5.1 yards per play allowed is tied for 10th in the league and their 4.2 yards per rush is better than New England, Kansas City and New Orleans. The team started 5-2 ATS, has fallen to 6-6 and, in the final weeks of the year against Miami and at New England, when Manuel settles into a rhythm again, the Bills will have long been forgotten by the public.
2. Houston Texans
Every week the Texans have gotten wiseguy support and every week they have let bettors down. Based on stats, they are the right side. Their defense is among the best in the league in total yards allowed and just out of the top 10 in rushing yards per play and passing yards per play allowed. On offense they possess the ball for just less than 32 minutes a game, sixth best in the league. The problem is that they are minus-12 in turnovers, and more than a handful of those have been returned for touchdowns. Every wiseguy will tell you that turnovers are one of those stats in which there is eventually a regression to the mean.
Bettors are going to bank that some of that regression will happen in the final month of the season -- that trend may have started against New England in Week 13 -- especially when the square's perception of Houston is at its lowest and it faces public faves Denver and Indy.
3. St. Louis Rams
Over the final month of the season St. Louis will play Arizona (away), New Orleans (home), Tampa Bay (home) and Seattle (home). They will be underdogs in three of those four games, but that is reflective of a season's worth of public perception. The reality is that this team, while just 2-3 since Oct. 28, has been a lot better the second half of the season. Two of those losses were slugfests to Seattle and Tennessee and the third was a field goal fest until late in the second half. The Rams are the youngest team in the league and Jeff Fisher historically has been a wiseguy fave because of the way his teams consistently improve. This year, after an 0-4 ATS start, they have gone 5-3. But the public has ignored them because they've been so far out of the playoff race.
<!-- begin inline 2 -->[h=4]Super Bowl XLVIII odds (courtesy of LVH)[/h]
| Team | Open (Jan 14) | Shortest odds (date) | Longest odds (date) | Current odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "OFF" odds means that books are no longer taking future bets on that team | ||||
| New England Patriots | 6-1 | 6-1 (Dec 3) | 10-1 (Oct 7) | 6-1 |
| San Francisco 49ers | 8-1 | 9-2 (May 20) | 10-1 (Dec 3) | 10-1 |
| Denver Broncos | 8-1 | 2-1 (Oct 7) | 8-1 (Jan 14) | 2-1 |
| Green Bay Packers | 10-1 | 8-1 (July 15) | 75-1 (Dec 3) | 75-1 |
| Seattle Seahawks | 10-1 | 2-1 (Dec 3) | 12-1 (Jan 21) | 2-1 |
| Houston Texans | 12-1 | 10-1 (Jan 21) | OFF (Dec 3) | OFF |
| Atlanta Falcons | 15-1 | 12-1 (Jul 8) | OFF (Dec 3) | OFF |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 15-1 | 14-1 (Jan 21) | 200-1 (Oct 7) | 100-1 |
| New Orleans Saints | 15-1 | 9-2 (Oct 7) | 20-1 (May 6) | 8-1 |
| Baltimore Ravens | 20-1 | 14-1 (Jan 21) | 100-1 (Oct 21) | 50-1 |
| New York Giants | 20-1 | 16-1 (Mar 18) | 1,000-1 (Oct 7) | 300-1 |
| Washington Redskins | 30-1 | 20-1 (Jul 15) | OFF (Dec 3) | OFF |
| Chicago Bears | 30-1 | 20-1 (Sept 9) | 100-1 (Dec 3) | 100-1 |
| Cincinnati Bengals | 30-1 | 12-1 (Oct 21) | 40-1 (Feb 18) | 20-1 |
| Dallas Cowboys | 30-1 | 18-1 (Sept 9) | 50-1 (Nov 11) | 30-1 |
| San Diego Chargers | 30-1 | 30-1 (Jan 14) | 500-1 (Dec 3) | 500-1 |
| Detroit Lions | 40-1 | 20-1 (Nov 11) | 60-1 (May 13) | 30-1 |
| Minnesota Vikings | 40-1 | 40-1 (Jan 14) | OFF (Dec 3) | OFF |
| Indianapolis Colts | 40-1 | 14-1 (Oct 21) | 60-1 (Sept 16) | 30-1 |
| Carolina Panthers | 40-1 | 10-1 (Dec 3) | 100-1 (Oct 7) | 10-1 |
| New York Jets | 50-1 | 40-1 (Mar 11) | 500-1 (Dec 3) | 500-1 |
| Philadelphia Eagles | 50-1 | 30-1 (Nov 18) | 100-1 (Sept 23) | 40-1 |
| Miami Dolphins | 50-1 | 20-1 (Sept 16) | 100-1 (Dec 3) | 100-1 |
| St. Louis Rams | 50-1 | 40-1 (Aug 12) | 1,000 (Dec 3) | 1,000-1 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 50-1 | 40-1 (Apr 22) | OFF (Dec 3) | OFF |
| Cleveland Browns | 50-1 | 50-1 (Jan 14) | 500-1 (Oct 21) | 2,000-1 |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 50-1 | 10-1 (Oct 21) | 60-1 (Mar 18) | 40-1 |
| Tennessee Titans | 100-1 | 50-1 (Sept 23) | 500-1 (Dec 3) | 500-1 |
| Buffalo Bills | 100-1 | 100-1 (Jan 14) | 2,000-1 (Dec 3) | 2,000-1 |
| Arizona Cardinals | 100-1 | 50-1 (Nov 25) | 300-1 (May 20) | 60-1 |
| Oakland Raiders | 150-1 | 150-1 (Jan 14) | 2,000-1 (Dec 3) | 2,000-1 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | 150-1 | 150-1 (Jan 14) | OFF (Dec 3) | OFF |
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It's not what you are thinking. I'm talking about the color of your face when you've had bad shellfish or just seen a picture of the MRSA virus in action or happened to turn off the TV thinking your Week 12 Broncos bet was safe only to wake up and find out you'd been Brady'd. It's also what the Gambling Opus has named the final 15 minutes of an NFL game, when your hard-earned money is won or lost.
All season long Jeff Gold, crack ESPN The Mag researcher and regular contributor to Insider, has been tracking how many games are within a score of the point spread heading into the fourth quarter. Last year, the number was 125 of the 256 games, or about 49 percent. So far this season, through 192 games, 96 of them (exactly half) were just a botched snap, Hail Mary, missed tackle, phantom call or rookie mistake from covering. Or not.
But wait, to really bring out that bright shade of green you wear so well, Jeff dug a little further and tracked how many games were still too close for comfort in the final five minutes. The tally: 86 of 192 games. This past weekend alone, nine games could have gone either way as the final gun neared.
So yes, my degenerate friends, there is no right side, only good luck and bad luck.
Everyone has their "A-ha" moment. And while Oprah has turned the idea into a movement and practically trademarked the idea, these moments of inspiration and clarity have been knocking people on the head for centuries, literally (see Newton, Isaac).
Personally, I had my own "A-ha" moment this year. It happened during the second half of the Broncos-Cowboys game in Week 5. The total for the game was 56, and with a little more than seven minutes left in the third quarter, the score was Denver 35-Dallas 27. More than 22 minutes remained in the entire game, and the absurdly high over/under had already been decided. We can all agree that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that game was when I said to myself there is no such thing as a total too low anymore. Scoring in the NFL is like the temperature in the atmosphere, it's only going up.
Back in the day, before the NFL decided playing defense was at best a nuisance and at worst a mortal danger, over/under bets were mostly played by those in the extreme ends of the gambling world: Specialists who put in the extra time studying scoring patterns and the once-a-year squares who went to Vegas, hit the books, enjoyed the free drinks and cheered for something, anything, to happen. But in the past few years, thanks to Internet machines and the accessibility of information, everyone has become a bit more savvy. The big data revolution has leveled the playing field, or at least made more people think of totals as an investment opportunity. Now, as The Orleans bookmaker Bob Scucci has said repeatedly on my podcast, on any given Sunday over/unders represent as much action as sides.
What bettors -- casual, professional and the increasingly large swath of people who regularly gamble on sports but don't necessarily do it for a living -- saw was that scoring in the NFL was increasing. Thanks to the Stats & Info group here at ESPN, I know that, in 2003, teams combined for a little more than 41 points per game. Over the next six seasons, through 2009, the number was relatively static. It peaked at 44.1 in 2008, then dropped more than a full point the next year, to 42.9. But, in 2010, it popped up to 44.1 PPG and it has steadily increased the past three years. In 2013, teams are scoring a record 46.5 points per game. With 78 50-plus point games so far this year, and 64 games left to go, there is a chance we will see more than 90 50-plus point games, the highest in the past decade.
Naturally, bookmakers have adjusted for this inflation in scoring. Take a look at this chart below that the SportsInsights.com team put together for me that shows how totals have increased the past 10 years:
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]NFL Totals since 2003[/h]
| Season | Over % | Average Total | Average % on Over | Totals 50+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 55.9 | 45.4 | 65.5 | 28 (so far) |
| 2012 | 49.6 | 44.8 | 64.5 | 35 |
| 2011 | 49.4 | 43.6 | 64.4 | 23 |
| 2010 | 55.8 | 42.8 | 66.3 | 7 |
| 2009 | 47.2 | 42.7 | 64.5 | 12 |
| 2008 | 49.6 | 42.5 | 66.5 | 13 |
| 2007 | 53.6 | 41.7 | 61.3 | 10 |
| 2006 | 50.4 | 40.5 | 63.4 | 2 |
| 2005 | 48.6 | 40.9 | 62.1 | 10 |
| 2004 | 50.4 | 41.8 | 60.4 | 28 |
| 2003 | 47.4 | 41 | 60.7 | 5 |
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<!-- end inline 3 -->Bookmakers are no dummies. Since 2007, the average over/under has jumped four points. Meanwhile, this year they have posted totals of 50 or more 28 times through 13 weeks, pacing them ahead of the 35 they posted last year, the most in the past decade. By the way, eight of those games have involved the Broncos, whose totals have exceeded 50 points 10 times.
And yet, even these adjustments may not be enough. Over bettors this year are hitting at a 56 percent clip (99-78-2), according to SportsInsights.com. At that I just have to scratch my head and say, "A-ha."
I should be taking a victory lap. Because, if you paid attention to the Opus, you would have known from Version II this past October that Aaron Rodgers was the NFL's most valuable player against the point spread, worth 10 points as determined by me and my Millman Rankings cohort, Evan Abrams. And if you were paying attention, you would have noticed that immediately after Rodgers broke his collarbone on Nov. 4, the line for the Packers-Eagles game six days later shifted from Green Bay minus-10 to Green Bay minus-1.5. And then it dropped to Green Bay minus-1. And then to pick. And by kickoff the Eagles were actually favored by a point, in a game they went on to win by two touchdowns.
Of course, because you read the Opus, you knew there were a couple of points worth of value from the initial adjustment and jumped all over it. That is what The Millman Rankings and the PSVAR metric are supposed to show you. Keep the updated version with you wherever you go for the next month. Then you can be ready to make a play on a moment's injury notice and build your Christmas bankroll.
<!-- begin inline 4 -->[h=4]The Millman Rankings[/h]PSVAR (point spread value above replacement) metric.
| Rank | Player | PSVAR | Replacement(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| * indicates that player is currently injured | |||
| 1 | Aaron Rodgers* | 11 | Matt Flynn/Scott Tolzien |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 2 | Tom Brady | 9.5 | Ryan Mallett |
| 3 | Drew Brees | 9.5 | Luke McCown |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 4 | Peyton Manning | 9 | Brock Osweiler |
| 5 | Eli Manning | 9 | Curtis Painter/Ryan Nassib |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 6 | Philip Rivers | 8 | Charlie Whitehurst |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 7 | Joe Flacco | 7.5 | Tyrod Taylor |
| 8 | Ben Roethlisberger | 7.5 | Bruce Gradkowski |
| 9 | Matt Ryan | 7.5 | Dominique Davis |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 10 | Cam Newton | 7 | Derek Anderson |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 11 | Andrew Luck | 6.5 | Matt Hasselbeck |
| 12 | Russell Wilson | 6.5 | Tarvaris Jackson |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 13 | Tony Romo | 5 | Kyle Orton |
| 14 | Jay Cutler* | 5 | Josh McCown |
| 15 | Matthew Stafford | 5 | Shaun Hill |
| 16 | Colin Kaepernick | 5 | Colt McCoy |
| 17 | Andy Dalton | 5 | Josh Johnson |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 18 | Robert Griffin III | 4.5 | Kirk Cousins |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 19 | Adrian Peterson | 3.5 | Toby Gerhart |
| 20 | Calvin Johnson | 3.5 | Kris Durham |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 21 | A.J. Green | 3 | Mohamed Sanu |
| 22 | Jamaal Charles | 3 | Knile Davis |
| 23 | Alex Smith | 3 | Chase Daniel |
| 24 | Sam Bradford* | 3 | Kellen Clemens |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 25 | Marshawn Lynch | 2.5 | Robert Turbin/Christine Michael |
| 26 | Joe Thomas | 2.5 | Rashad Butler |
| 27 | Darrelle Revis | 2.5 | Leonard Johnson/Johnthan Banks |
| 28 | Rob Gronkowski | 2.5 | Michael Hoomanawanui |
| 29 | J.J. Watt | 2.5 | Jared Crick |
| 30 | LeSean McCoy | 2.5 | Bryce Brown/Chris Polk |
| 31 | Joe Haden | 2.5 | Chris Owens/Leon McFadden |
| 32 | Jared Allen | 2.5 | Everson Griffen |
| 33 | Dominic Raiola | 2.5 | Corey Hilliard |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 34 | Julius Peppers | 2 | Landon Cohen |
| 35 | Haloti Ngata | 2 | Terrence Cody |
| 36 | Geno Atkins* | 2 | Domata Peko/Devon Still |
| 37 | Duane Brown | 2 | Ryan Harris |
| 38 | Reggie Wayne* | 2 | Darrius Heyward-Bey/T.Y. Hilton |
| 39 | Jimmy Graham | 2 | Benjamin Watson |
| 40 | Ryan Clady* | 2 | Chris Clark |
| 41 | Clay Matthews | 2 | Andy Mulumba |
| 42 | Vince Wilfork* | 2 | Joe Vellano |
| 43 | Jake Long* | 2 | Joe Barksdale |
| 44 | DeMarcus Ware | 2 | Kyle Wilber |
| 45 | Chris Myers | 2 | Ben Jones |
| 46 | Patrick Peterson | 2 | Javier Arenas/Antoine Cason |
| 47 | Nick Mangold | 2 | Caleb Schlauderaff/Vladimir Ducasse |
| 48 | Maurice Jones-Drew | 2 | Jordan Todman |
| 49 | Alex Mack | 2 | John Greco/Oniel Cousins |
| 50 | B.J. Raji | 2 | Mike Daniels/Datone Jones |
| 51 | Andre Johnson | 2 | DeAndre Hopkins |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 52 | Ray Rice | 1.5 | Bernard Pierce |
| 53 | Cameron Wake | 1.5 | Derrick Shelby |
| 54 | Maurkice Pouncey* | 1.5 | Cody Wallace |
| 55 | Mike Pouncey | 1.5 | Nate Garner |
| 56 | Joe Staley* | 1.5 | Joe Looney |
| 57 | Ryan Tannehill | 1.5 | Matt Moore |
| 58 | Sean Lee* | 1.5 | Kyle Bosworth/Ernie Sims |
| 59 | Jason Witten | 1.5 | James Hanna/Gavin Escobar |
| 60 | Ndamukong Suh | 1.5 | C.J. Mosley |
| 61 | Ryan Kalil | 1.5 | Geoff Hangartner |
| 62 | Jahri Evans | 1.5 | Tim Lelito |
| 63 | Mike Iupati* | 1.5 | Adam Snyder |
| 64 | Larry Fitzgerald | 1.5 | Michael Floyd/Andre Roberts |
| 65 | Brandon Marshall | 1.5 | Alshon Jeffery/Earl Bennett |
| 66 | James Laurinaitis | 1.5 | Will Witherspoon |
| 67 | Robert Mathis | 1.5 | Cam Johnson |
| -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 68 | Justin Smith | 1 | Tony Jerod-Eddie |
| 69 | Von Miller | 1 | Nate Irving |
| 70 | Tony Gonzalez | 1 | Levine Toilolo |
| 71 | Jonathan Goodwin | 1 | Daniel Kilgore |
| 72 | Troy Polamalu | 1 | Shamarko Thomas |
| 73 | Michael Roos | 1 | Michael Otto |
| 74 | Anquan Boldin | 1 | Jon Baldwin/Quinton Patton |
| 75 | Antonio Gates | 1 | John Phillips/Ladarius Green |
| 76 | Vincent Jackson | 1 | Tiquan Underwood |
| 77 | Arian Foster* | 1 | Ben Tate/Dennis Johnson |
| 78 | EJ Manuel | 1 | Thad Lewis/Jeff Tuel |
| 79 | Tamba Hali | 1 | Frank Zombo/Dezman Moses |
| 80 | Justin Houston* | 1 | Frank Zombo/Dezman Moses |
| 81 | Aldon Smith | 1 | Dan Skuta |
| 82 | Jordan Gross | 1 | Nate Chandler |
| 83 | Calais Campbell | 1 | Frostee Rucker |
| 84 | Marshal Yanda | 1 | A.Q. Shipley |
| 85 | Louis Delmas | 1 | Don Carey |
| 86 | DeSean Jackson | 1 | Riley Cooper/Jason Avant |
| 87 | Richard Sherman | 1 | Byron Maxwell |
| 88 | Scott Wells* | 1 | Shelley Smith |
| 89 | Orlando Franklin | 1 | Winston Justice/Chris Kuper |
| 90 | D'Brickashaw Ferguson | 1 | Vladimir Ducasse/Ben Ijalana |
| 91 | Eric Weddle | 1 | Jahleel Addae |
| 92 | Vernon Davis | 1 | Vance McDonald |
| 93 | Marcell Dareus | 1 | Corbin Bryant/Stefan Charles |
| 94 | Ben Grubbs | 1 | Tim Lelito |
| 95 | Nick Hardwick | 1 | Rich Ohrnberger |
| 96 | David Harris | 1 | Nick Bellore/Garrett McIntyre |
| 97 | Alfred Morris | 1 | Roy Helu |
| 98 | Frank Gore | 1 | Kendall Hunter |
| 99 | Josh Sitton | 1 | Lane Taylor |
| 100 | Justin Blalock | 1 | Joe Hawley |
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[h=3]Teams wiseguys hate[/h]
1. New York Giants
Right behind the Texans, with a TO differential of minus-11, are the Giants. And yet, regression to the mean is not a factor wiseguys are considering when it comes to New York. That's because, well, the Giants are a pretty crummy team. There is no redeeming statistical measure for New York, as there is with Houston, to indicate that this team has untapped value. The Giants are 23rd in total yards per play on offense and convert just 35 percent of third downs, 25th in the league. To make matters worse, the Giants went on a four-game win streak and then played the Cowboys close, making the public think they might be better than their record.
2. New England Patriots
New England's comeback win over Denver didn't just cement Tom Brady's legacy as this generation's QB-you-want-to-win-one-game title over Peyton Manning, it created a halo that will last the rest of the season. And their remaining games -- against Cleveland, Miami, Baltimore and Buffalo, teams wiseguys have found value in this season -- reek of stinky, overinflated traps.
3. Kansas City Chiefs
Oh, how fickle bettors can be. In Gambling Opus I, I crowned the Chiefs the "preseason wiseguy champion." No team had seen as much season win-total action as Kansas City. And through the first few weeks of this season, as the Chiefs rolled to a 5-1 ATS start, plenty of wiseguys cashed in. Then, by mid-October, when us squares decided Kansas City might be for real, the wiseguys turned their backs. Since that 5-1 ATS start, they are 1-5. That won't change in the last month of the season, especially when Kansas City goes on the road, likely as favorites, against Washington and Oakland. Ladies and degenerates, the Kansas City Chiefs are your regular season, overinflated, walk-the-other-way champions.
