By Robby Wellington – Staff Writer
With all the hoopla surrounding fantasy drafts and first week starting rankings, I nearly forgot my first love as a pro football fan, which along with Madden ’96, consumed me throughout my formative and fragile year as a 110-pound high school freshman. I am talking about, of course, the noble art of simple football betting. Walking around with a little ‘docket’ pad where I could keep track of all my $5 and $10 wagers, I was pretty legit and had a successful season, culminated by winning multiple bets against Jeff when the Jaguars upset his favorite team (when they were good that is) the Bills, in Jim Kelly’s last game in Buffalo. But enough reminiscing. Since this is the first week of the NFL season, I’m going to touch on a few issues before making some picks.
Now all serious gamblers usually make their wagers right when the spreads come out, as there are always a couple that are off but quickly adjust after the pro gamers take advantage. Dalton, for example, is a degener. . .umm, serious gambler and saw that Philadelphia was a meager 4 point favorite over Houston. The spread is now at 5.5. Similarly, I liked Pittsburgh, even with Charlie Batch, as a 1 point dog at home against the Dolphins. Now the Steelers are 1 point favorites.
In terms of straight bets this week, I like the Colts at -3.5. I stubbornly continue to believe that the Colts are the best team in football and think that they’ll be able to win by better than a field goal at New York. I also like the Bengals at +1.5 to beat the Chiefs.
Some of my favorite bets to make, and bets that I know Dalton almost makes exclusively, are teasers. For those of you who don’t know, teasers are essentially parlays where you receive additional points in exchange for lowered odds. For example, if you pick two teams (or over/unders) you can choose to add 6, 6.5 or 7 points to their spread. You have to bet 110 to win 100 if you’re teasing 6 points, 120 to win 100 for 6.5 and 130 to win 100 for 7. Three-bet teasers pay +180, +160 and +140 and -110 for 6, 6.5, 7 and 10 points respectively while four-bet teasers pay +300, +250, +200 and -110 for 6, 6.5, 7 and 13 points respectively. Simple, right?
Now, I have two general strategies when teasing bets. One is taking a low-scoring team and the under, which benefits from their style of play. For example, the Bears should be able to clamp down on the Packers, winning a low scoring game. I would tease the Bears and the under 6.5 points each, meaning that as long as the Bears don’t lose by 4 or more points and under 42 total points are scored, I win the bet. When teasing over/unders, I always tease very low-scoring games. 6 points is far more significant in a Steelers/Bears game than a Patriots/Colts game, yet it costs the same.
The second strategy is picking a couple of favorites in the -6 to -9 range who I feel a veritable lock to win their games and tease them down to the point where it becomes a pick ’em. The Patriots, Cardinals, Eagles and Seahawks all fit that bill this week. However, I wouldn’t be completely shocked to see the Eagles and Seahawks lose road games, while I just can’t see the Pats or Cardinals losing to the lowly Bills or Niners. I’ll tease NE and Zona 6.5, down to -2.5 and -1 respectively. Let the games begin!
PS – I almost forgot, on Bodog, some lines are -105/-115 or even 100/-120 instead of the usual -110 on both sides. However, these discrepancies are not taken into consideration in teasers (they are in parlays). While minute, this presents a minor arbitrage to take advantage of, or at least consider, when placing teaser bets.
Dalton’s Picks
While Robby covered the bases, I’d like to add a bit as well. There are some futures bets I find especially enticing, namely the over/under on teams regular season wins. My absolute favorite is Green Bay UNDER 6 1/2 wins. Some others I like include: Baltimore UNDER 8 wins at +140, Cincinnati OVER 9 wins, and Philadelphia OVER 8 1/2 wins.
As for week one, using the Cardinals, Eagles and Patriots in a 7-point teaser seems like the way to go.
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