Editor's note: Judd Hall has cashed in with six winners in his last seven selections. He's locked and loaded with four more winners this weekend. Click to win!
Last week was the first time in a while that we saw a glut of favorites in the NFL of nine-points or higher…five of them, to be exact. The lines were put out that high because there is a more noticeable talent gap this season.
What’s even more surprising than the heavy “chalk” was the fact that they went 4-1 straight up and against the spread. The only loser was Baltimore, who was listed as a 9 ½-point home favorite against the Bengals.
There isn’t any signs of these big numbers going away at the moment as there are six tilts this Sunday that have favorites of at least nine points.
VegasInsider.com’s expert handicapper Jason Johnson isn’t surprised to see these numbers to stay on the high side. “I think that just like last week, there is a good reason to see these large spreads. It's important to remember that the oddsmakers are trying to get two-way action and that the line doesn't necessarily indicate what oddsmakers expect the final score to be. Some teams are simply much better than others and these spreads are showing it. I expect some of these numbers to grown by game time.”
Of course, those lines could be easily attributed to the quality of talent on the teams and gives you a greater chance of cashing in at the betting shops. Chip Chirimbes explains, “Nine points in the NFL is a 'monster' to beat and I have always looked to take that many points. The problem with this years NFL teams is that there are that many bad teams. St. Louis (0-5) can't score, Oakland (1-4) has a win but are one of the worst teams in years. Tampa Bay (0-5) has a new coach and rookie quarterback and has NO defense to stop anybody. Kansas City (0-5) has been terrible for a number of seasons now and the Cleveland Browns (1-4) have no offense scoring only 11 points per game. Now those are teams that we should probably 'play against' and that brings up to Tennessee (0-5) a team that won their first 10 games last year and now after five games they are winless. “
“Throw into the mix the Giants (5-0), Vikings (5-0), Colts (5-0) and Saints (4-0) and the upstart Broncos at 5-0 means that there will be plenty of 'high' priced games. I like it better when there is a vast difference between the best and the worst teams. It brings more opportunity for handicappers to take advantage on either side of games that might surprise you.”
We’re not seeing any of those perfect storms like we saw last week with the G-men taking on Oakland. Being unblemished won’t matter this week as some two-loss and three-loss clubs are favored by 9 ½-points or more.
The biggest spread on the board is between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The Steelers may only be 3-2 this year, but are 15-point home favorites against the Browns. There really shouldn’t be any shockers about this line since the Cleveland is has been garbage this year on the attack like Chirimbes previously mentioned. And the Steelers average 375.8 yards per game on offense.
One game that has confused a few folks here in the office and out there around the office water coolers is Jacksonville hosting the hapless Rams. The Jaguars were just crushed by Seattle 41-0 last Sunday. Jacksonville was initially listed as a 13-point home “chalk” by Las Vegas Sports Consultants. Randy Scott, sportsbook manager for betED, breaks down how this line for us. “As bad as the Jags are the Rams are worst - especially in Jacksonville were the home team is expected to step their game up. Minus-11 was the opening line Monday morning without knowing the status of Rams QB Marc Bulger. By Monday afternoon Marc Bulger's status was upgraded from unknown to probable, since then the market has slowly dropped the Jags to currently under 10 points.”
Scott continues, “This game falls into the exact same category as the Titans game. Jags -9 will be as low as we go and -10 will be the top number, as long as Bulger's status stays this way these are the parameter we are working with.”
Regardless of whether we think these lines might be a little bigger than needed, they’re going to be around for a while. Scott explains what we should expect. “It's hard to believe these really bad teams we are seeing now will turn it around. Browns, Rams, Raiders in almost every situation these teams should be double digit underdogs all season against Top 10 teams. Near the end of the regular season is when certain situations will come up where these teams will receive lower than usual odds. Not out of respect, but more of a situation adjustment. That time of year the top teams are looking past these bad teams and into the playoffs, coaches will rest their top players and then; we'll have a whole new match-up to set odds for.”
Something else we saw from the sportsbooks last week was how they tried to even out the action on the Titans-Colts. Indianapolis was getting hammered as a 3 ½-point road favorite to the point that the betting shops moved the number to four on Sunday to no avail. The Titans were killed 31-9 and bettors were wiser for backing the “chalk.”
Randy Scott helps us understand where the sportsbooks are coming from when lines are moving like that at the last moment. “There are key numbers books can bounce off and on to easily balance one-way action, but it comes at a price that most books try to avoid. This week's Titans’ match between the Patriots, we are currently using -9.5. We can also use -9 and -10 depending on the direction of the early action. If the action gets out of hand one way or the other the key numbers we could use to create almost instant take back action is either -8.5 or -10.5. It will have to take an incredible amount of one-way action on either team to get to those lines. Books live with lop sided decisions all the time; it's just a matter of a risk comfort zone for each sportsbook.”
You can reach Judd Hall via e-mail at judd@vegasinsider.com
