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It’s not at all uncommon to see teams favored in college football by nine-points or more this deep into the year. When it comes to the NFL, there is more parity amongst the teams. That is until this season.
There were just two teams that were listed as nine-point favorites or better In Week 5 of the 2008 season. This Sunday’s card shows us six teams that are favored by at least nine-points.
While that information will raise an eyebrow or two amongst the public, it hasn’t surprised some of our stable of expert handicappers.
“I’m not surprised at all,” says Marc Lawrence. “This particular weekend finds numerous upper tier, or popular public, teams taking on struggling opponents. As a result the linesmaker is forced to make adjustments. Otherwise Vegas would be swamped with one-way action.”
Jason Johnson believes the same. "I'm not surprised to see double digit lines in some of the games this week. There is a noticeable difference between teams like the New York Giants and the Oakland Raiders and Las Vegas has to set these lines high to get action on both sides. The Giants opened at -15 and have already been pushed up by the sharps and I wouldn't be surprised to see it pushed even higher before game time."
There is no question about why the Giants would be listed as 16-point home favorites at betED against a team like Oakland. New York is fifth in scoring offense (26.8 points per game) and the Raiders are 29th in the NFL (10.5 PPG). And bettors will no doubt be willing to back the G-men since Oakland is 7-11 against the spread when listed as an underdog of nine-points or more.
Oddly enough, not a lot of hubbub over Philadelphia being installed as a 16-point home “chalk” against the Buccaneers. It could be the fact that Tampa Bay is using Josh Johnson to start under center this week after throwing for a sterling 142 yards against the Redskins. Or maybe 76 percent of the money on this game at Sportsbook.com is taking the Eagles to cover is because Andy Reid is 13-0 straight up and 10-3 against the spread when coming off of a bye week since 1999.
Randy Scott, betED’s sportsbook manager, lets us in on why the lines have taken the jump for this week. “The books are hanging big numbers out there, bigger than last year at this time. It just shows how much separation the NFL can create from one year to the next. It took the first four weeks to get the opening lines this high. That's because the start of the season the favorites were easily covering the lower spread and each week since then, the favs are being adjusted higher and higher.”
“Last week we also saw a 60 percent increase in teaser action from the week before, that's due to the favorites being this high. This week we expect the same if not more Teaser action and our lines will remain high in an attempt to keep the bigger faves from being Teases down through key numbers,” concludes Scott.
Something else we saw happen this week was wide receiver Michael Crabtree finally signing with the 49ers and Cleveland shipping wide out Braylon Edwards to the Jets for a couple of players and draft picks.
Crabtree isn’t going to be playing this weekend against the Falcons, which is to be expected for a rookie that is about three months late to the party. Edwards, however, is going to be suiting up for the Jets down in Miami.
Jason Johnson isn’t expecting much of an immediate impact from either player. “I don't see either Edwards or Crabtree making significant contributions this weekend. It'll take some time before they learn the playbook and in Crabtree's case, probably take a little time to get in game shape at NFL speed. I'd expect both to play major roles in about three weeks."
If you’re looking to the sportsbooks for any idea as to Edwards being a difference maker, it won’t be this week. The good folks at betED made the Jets one-point road favorites last Monday with a total of 36.5. That line has not moved as of Saturday evening.
We probably should have guessed that would be changing after seeing how the Browns’ line changed after trading their former No. 1 receiver. Cleveland was initially posted as a six-point road pup against the Bills with the total coming in at 40 ½. The Browns are still listed as six-point road ‘dogs, but now the total is 41 ½. I guess that really is addition by subtraction.
You can reach Judd Hall via e-mail at judd@vegasinsider.com.
