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Posted 09/28/2010 at 11:57 AM
The two most talked about 0-2 teams delivered last week with Minnesota and Dallas getting into the win column. The 0-2 team that a lot of people expected to bounce back failed as the 49ers came up well short against Kansas City. St. Louis was another desperate winless team that came up with a big win. Be careful fading the 0-3 teams this week as Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, and Carolina could play into favorable situations this week. All four teams will be underdogs this week but don’t be surprised to see at least one big upset.
Home teams went 4-11 against the spread last Sunday and favorites went just 5-10. A couple of popular public plays still cleared through as the Colts and Eagles both cashed, as did Cincinnati and Pittsburgh to keep it from being a huge week for the books. Home favorites were just 1-7 ATS last Sunday with only Minnesota’s narrow cover over Detroit coming home a winner. Home underdogs have been very successful this season in the NFL and ‘over’ plays came in well last week after a strong start for the ‘under’ the first two weeks.
While NFL favorites suffered, heavy college favorites made bank last week with a 15-3 mark for chalk of 20 or more points. This includes the FCS match-ups that featured several blowouts last week. While there are almost always a few upsets from lower division teams early in the year as teams are often caught still making adjustments, the chances of those upsets decrease considerably a few weeks into the season. Keep an eye out for later season match-ups that get tossed in between critical conference games as those can be promising underdog situations to consider.
After the Colts and the Saints made late season undefeated runs last season, neither will do so this year. There are just three undefeated teams remaining at this point in the year. The winner of the Packers/Bears match-up Monday night will be the least surprising of the three, even if it is the Bears. Pittsburgh was certainly expected to be a quality team but the QB situation has made this start very impressive. Kansas City is considered a big surprise by most but the Chiefs have drawn a favorable schedule and two teams that the Chiefs beat, the Chargers and the 49ers, do not appear to be as strong as most projected.
This is a very exciting football week with the college conference games taking over for the most part including several dandy debut match-ups. Texas/Oklahoma has lost a bit of its cachet with the ugly upset loss for Texas last week but the Big XII fate is still up for grabs. The SEC features a monster game with Alabama and Florida meeting in a championship rematch. The Big Ten will also start with two very intriguing games between teams with high aspirations. What may be the most exciting game to look forward to watching is in the Pac-10 as undefeated Stanford and Oregon face off to determine the early leader in the conference. Arizona and USC are still undefeated as well in the Pac-10 but with the points the Cardinal and Ducks are posting there will be a lot of interest in that game. Best of Luck, and on to this week’s slate…
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