I don't know if it's ironic, or fitting, or what, but totals FINALLY performed both well statistically and in actual results, cashing for +3.4 units for the week.  Unreal what a bad ride we've had on these all season, but at least the last week was reassuring heading into the playoffs and next year at least.  Always my bread and butter bets, it seems like every turnover or special teams play hurt the total bet we had played.

The week would've also been much better if not for backing some of the big dogs who had nothing to play for versus teams that did.  Specifically, the Colts (Curtis Painter you worthless sack of dung), the Bengals (it's like their wide receivers had their fingers amputated before the game), the Giants (thank you for firing the defensive coordinator the next day, but it didn't help rescue the Giants +9 play), and the Saints (who were the lone dog here that probably should have covered -- they got pretty deep twice near the end of the game, once in the red zone before a turnover killed their chance of covering the +7 and +10 plays we had on them).

Year to Date:

At any rate, in this handicapping business so much based on "what have you done for me lately" I'm going to give my past clients'  a leg up by starting off not charging next season until I reach a certain number of units won.  I'm thinking of eliminating season subscriptions and just charging single payments for each units won threshold that I set.  In essence, I want my clients to have their subscription payments already paid for many times over in profit before any dollars come out of their pocket next season.   NFL handicapping is a part time job for me, and I don't rely on gambling or subscription payments as a regular part of my income -- I'm not in this to make as much money from people as I can whether the plays post a winning record or not.   I'm more interested in anyone following my plays to make money more than anything else.  Because I don't rely on subscribers for income (though it's been a nice help to my family), I'm more than happy to change the way I'm compensated for my services -- I want subscription payments to come from the books' pockets, not my clients.  Some time next year I will finalize my plans for the site next year and post what I plan on doing.

Year to Date:

Year to Date:

Good Plays Gone Bad

#1:  TEN +7.5:  We hit this line early when it briefly peaked at +7.5 before dropping and closing at +6 or +6.5.  The Titans outgained the Colts in total yards and statistically should have lost by just one point.  Instead they lost by 10, failing to cover the +7.5.  Always frustrating to outgain an opponent while failing to cover as a touchdown+ underdog.  The Titans' peformance in the red zone was dreadful, and the playcalling didn't help.  4th and goal at the 2 and you have Vince Young throw a corner fade?  WTF?  Seems to me like your best options there are either a pitch wide to Chris Johnson or a bootleg with VY, as both plays give your top two playmakers the ability to make someone miss needing only to pick up 2 yards.

#2:  TB +7:  We hopped on the +7 (-115) opening number, beating the market to the punch as usual as the number closed around +4.  The Bucs went on to outgain the Panthers by 160 yards and 0.8 yards per play, but their swashbuckling ways crashed on the rocks of the red zone on almost every occasion, with I believe 3 interceptions thrown inside the 10 yard line, with 5 interceptions thrown overall.   Come on, Freeman, mistakes in the red zone aren't free, man, they cost you the game.  A huge outgaining performance failing to cover as a touchdown dog.

#3:  SF +1:  Again we beat the closing market by a couple of points as the market correctly ended up favoring the currently better performing of the two teams, the 49ers.  The 49ers outgained the Seahawks by 68 yards and a whopping 1.9 yards per play, but went 1 for 13 on 3rd down conversions and their dreams of paydirt gold didn't pan out as a first half muffed punt gave Seattle a short field that led to a touchdown and a 37 yard drive with 21 seconds remaining in the game set Seattle up for the game winning field goal.  That's back to back weeks the Seahawks have won on the back of having the big plays go in their favor.

Bad Plays Gone Good

Nothing, really.  By the stats the KC/DEN total should have ended up near 37, not far from the 37.5 and 38 where we bet the Over.  That literally was the closest thing we had to winning a bet we didn't deserve -- in other words every other single bet we made for the week deserved to win, according to the stats of the game.  Do we often in plays we don't deserve?  Doesn't seem like it, lol.  The Steelers certainly didn't deserve to cover as -13.5 favorites (the early number we bet them on), but they narrowly did deserve to cover the -2.5 we needed to finish off a 4 team teaser which would have given us a 3 for 3 sweep on teasers for the week.  Instead, the Raiders had an improbable 3 touchdown drives in the 4th quarter, including the nail in the coffin score with 9 seconds remaining.

Our Good Play percentage was once again very high at 80%.  The Bad Plays staying bad (graded as not good plays) for the week were NYJ/BUF Over 3.5 (Thanks for dropping that wide open 80 yard touchdown pass that would have given us the Over, Braylon), the CHI/STL Over 41 (the Rams were masters of crossing midfield and then punting in that game), and the Steelers (Gradkowski had homefield advantage being from Pittsburgh, as it turned out).  That's it, of all the side and totals we played for the week.

One final note on poor luck on the week -- if you watched a lot of games or saw the highlights for the week, what were the two biggest pass drops you remember seeing?  I only remember seeing two huge drops that would have probably resulted in touchdowns -- the aforementioned Braylon Edwards drop that ultimately cost us the Over, and Nate Washington's drop of a perfectly thrown Vince Young bomb that almost certainly would have been for a touchdown instead of the zero points the Titans ended up getting on that drive, costing us a team total bet on the Titans and the game cover at +7.5. 

I'm not content to have a good week and be back in the black for the season -- I feel like bad luck kept us from having a double digit winning week.  We did get some backdoor covers with the Bengals and Lions, but you can't really say those are a product of luck -- both teams executed on final drives that resulted in a score, that's not luck, that's football, and that's the advantage of betting on big dogs.

Overall it looks like we should have gone 11-4 on all sides instead of the 9-6 we did for thepredictiontracker.com, though I'm still #1 averaging all the categories.

Year to Date:

Good Plays Gone Bad

DAL/OAK Over 39.5.  Dallas had almost 500 yards of offense, and Oakland had just over 300, by normal averages this game should have scored into the 50s, but only ended up with 31.

STL +3 -- The Rams outgained the Seahawks by 100 yards but lost the battle of big plays including a fairly long pick 6 against them.

Bad Plays Staying Bad

CHI +10.5 -- The Bears were the one real stinker play of the week, as they got absolutely cremated in every possible way in their game versus the Vikings.  The Vikings continue to play at a very high level on both sides of the ball.

Year to Date:

This week 64% of all the side, total and teaser plays graded out as good plays but we ended up down 7 units.

Last week 57% of the same plays graded out as good but we were down 6.8 units.

When looking at the Quality Control and Good Play data, it’s pretty clear that the last two weeks fell victim to bad luck more than anything else (each week has had one or two stinker plays, but that’s not many considering the number of plays).

The main culprit the last two weeks has been half plays, as they've hit a pretty bad streak after historically being one of my top performers.  This year they're now just up .8 of a unit.

The net result of numerous weeks of bad luck is that the recommended plays for the regular season are now down 3.9 units, which isn't much, really.  But for someone with a track record of winning every season it's outside of the norm, for sure.  Bad luck for me means hanging around near even, while for a less than steller handicapper it means being in a big hole, lol.

Good Plays Gone Wrong

Redskins +10 -- My top side of the week fell victim to a pick 6 when a nicely thrown ball by Campbell bounced right off the hands of Fred Davis to an Atlanta defender who raced 40+ yards to the endzone.  That was a bad miss by Fred.  The Redskins actually outgained the Falcons by a few yards, so to not be able to cover +10 is some rough luck.  Twice late in the 4th quarter the Redskins failed to pick up less than a yard on 4th down to extend a drive where a touchdown gives us the backdoor cover.

Seahawks +10 (and Under 21.5 2nd half) -- Nothing tops the sheer horror of watching a 61 yard interception return with less than 30 seconds in the game kill two plays, made even worse when the defender only has to run out of bounds so the offense can take a knee instead of going through the rigamarole of kicking an extra point, kicking off, and having the defense take the field again for a couple of plays.  Yet 2 out of 3 times you'll see these moron athletes risk losing a fumble or an injury to any number of people on their team for all of the ensuing plays in an attempt to satisy their vanity with a defensive score.  Tanard Jackson of the Bucs did the exact same thing at the end of the Bucs game.  The Lions did get out to an early lead because of very good field position after a couple of Seattle turnovers, but on yards per play and total yards they still deserved to cover the 10 points.  To watch a 27 point buffer versus the spread go down on that last pick 6 as Seattle outscored Detroit 32-3 after Detroit's early lead is brutal indeed.

Jaguars -6.5 (and -3 2nd half) -- Speaking of end of game nightmares, here's another one.  The Jaguars have a 24-7 lead with a few minutes left in the game, and the Chiefs are facing a 3rd and 19 near midfield.  Currently the game bet has an 11 point buffer, and the 2nd half play a 7 point buffer.  The newly acquired Chris Chambers runs free down the left side and hauls in a bomb for a touchdown.  Oh, that sucks, now the 2nd half play is a push but the game bet is still alive.  The Chiefs recover an onsides kick.  Man, that sucks.  And they go on to score, killing both the 2nd half and game bets (there was a consolation prize with a 1/2 unit wager on the Over, but I always prefer to hit my side bets to help my standings at thepredictiontracker.com). 

Tampa Bay blocked punt for a touchdown -- that ultimately put the Packers behind late in the game, forcing them into passing downs which are not good with the number of sacks Rodgers take, which lead to the pick 6 icing the game for the Bucs.  The Packers outgained the Bucs by over 100 yards yet lost, killing two big teasers in the process.

DeAngelo Williams fumbled on his own 5 yard line for a Saints' td with 2:16 left in the game -- killed a 2nd half Under play.  Granted, the Panthers could have gone downfield and scored the game tying field goal or a go ahead touchdown, but their offense had done very little in the 2nd half and passing is not their forte.  Plus, it put the +14 bet and game Under 52 bets in jeapordy, as we had to sweat a Panthers 4th and goal miss at the end of the game to preserve the Under play.  One small break for mankind.

49ers' touchdown with less than 30 seconds in the game -- killed a SF team total Under play.

Chargers' go ahead td with less than 30 seconds in the game -- killed a 2nd half Under play.

Steelers' pick 6 in the first half -- their only points of the half, killing a Den +1 1st half play.

Bad Plays Gone Good

None, really.  There were a few plays that statistically  shouldn't have coverd, but it was by pretty slim margins. 

Year to Date:

I never rest on a good record, though, and have been putting a lot of time in this week to further refine my lines, especially totals, as they have done poorly this year.  Though the stats indicate it's mostly due to bad luck, it's driven me to further tweak the new element I've added to my linemaking this year, the offense/defense matchup grid, which should be a lot better with the improvements I'm currently working on.  So far it's bringing the average total up, which should help with the Undercentricness of my lines.  Now, there's nothing wrong with showing more value on the Unders across the board, as historically that's correct and the books do shade their numbers high as Overs are more popular with the average bettor, but there are some factors I'm considering that would indicate it might be wiser to have my totals on average be nearer the actual totals than consistently below.

otals underperformed versus the game statistics, a far too common occurence this season.  3 of my strongest Under plays, GB/MIN, ATL/NO, and ARI/CAR should have all gone Under when averaging the total yards and yards per play. 

In the GB game, the only two turnovers were in the fumbling team's own territory, resulting in short fields and 10 points scored off turnovers.  Both teams combined for less than 700 yards of offense, a number that usually keeps the total below the 48.5 bet. 

In the Saints' game, the regular occurence of defensive scores continued to be regular, as there were 2 defensive touchdowns.  Take those 2 away and even add the two missed field goals that were in makeable range and the final score is still 31-23, which is a cover for the Under 55.  Both teams gained a little over 400 yards, good enough for a final score in the lower 50s.

In the Cardinals' game, the Panthers had a 13 yard pick 6 and 2 made field goals from 2 additional turnovers at the ARI 30 and 20 yard lines.  Yards wise this game should have come in just a hair under the 43.5 total we played, instead of flying over like it did.

I feel like the play on the Packers, even though it was less than a full unit play, was a bad play, as I don't feel my line was factoring in the big advantage the Vikings' had in sacks and the stellar level of play from Favre from week #3 on after he became fully acclimated to the offense.

The most dissappointing loss of the day was the Jets, who outgained the Dolphins by a ton of yards, held the Dolphins to 2 yards per play, but lost via Ted Ginn's 2 kickoff return touchdowns.

2nd halfves were frustrating this week, as I ended up going against a couple of my original game bets, only to see my original picks play well in the 2nd half and cover.  I had the Raiders and Falcons as 2 of my strong side plays, but both were getting dominated statistically in the first half, and their opponents were receiving the 2nd half kickoff, playing at home, so it didnt' look good for either team.  Well, both the Chargers and Saints went 3 and out on their first possession of the second half, and only put up 3 and 7 points respectively in the 2nd half.  I mean, I'm glad my initial picks ended up playing well in the 2nd half and covering, but it's frustrating when they play poorly enough in the 1st half that I'm compelled to take the other side at the half and end up losing juice on the game in the process.  I rarely end up going against my intial play with a 2nd half, and when I do I usually have average results.  To do it twice in a week is rare.