NFL Week 4

Vegas bookies interested in trying to delude NFL fans into betting money?

Reason I ask is that a search for point spreads took me to a site with numbers different than the ones here.

I also wonder what is “the official line” and when it has to stop changing prior to the game. Are there rules regarding that?

Anyway, if the Browns v Bengals game remains at 6 points, I’d bet the Bengals if I had money. It’s a terrible line. It should be like 9 or 10 points.

I use Danny Sheridan’s odds from USA Today as those are the most readily available. They aren’t adjusted as the week progresses as far as I know and I have no idea how closely they are tied into the real Vegas odds. It’s just a lark, I’m not laying any real money most of the time so I don’t really care about a point here or there, it’s just academic.

I’d be very interested to see what various Vegas odds are and how those odds move from day to day in each week but this post is time consuming enough that I’m not going to expend the effort myself. I welcome anyone else to post them and/or dispute any of the lines I post. It’s just another facet to debate and analyze which is pretty much the whole point.

What’s really fun is to go to one of those “option trading” sites and watch the movement during the week and even the game itself. Basically, you buy a contract that pays $100 (or whatever) if your team wins, and there is a live exchange market. So the price bounces around in real time.

Moneylines usually only move by a point or so unless something big happens during the week. The main goal is to get even money on both sides so that the bookies make lots of money with no risk.

The Browns have driven me to drink. I don’t really drink often at all, but I’m thinking it’ll make the sad parts easier to bear and the horrible parts even funnier.

GO FANTASY TEAMS!

Let me bitch about something for a second. Up here in Toronto, we’re subjected to whatever the Fox station from Buffalo is showing. But we also have our local TV station, CTV, broadcasting games and they are free to show whatever they want. Fox is showing the Giants/Chiefs; a stinker of a game if I’ve ever seen one. So what does CTV show? The same damn game. Why couldn’t they show the Patriots/Ravens game?

It’s going to be over in the first quarter

And the Chiefs fumbled the opening kickoff…

Massengill is your best receiver. He looks pretty good. And Cribbs…oh my. He’s dangerous.

If Washington loses to Tampa Bay, will Jim Zorn be fired? One of the ESPN guys says so. I’m not sure a coaching change in the middle of the season would be worth it.

Hapless Browns!

Superbowl bound bengals

Is it just me, or was Stafford just taken out by an uncalled horsecollar tackle?

Phil Simms needs to GO AWAY. Watching this game with him involved has been the most painful experience of my week, and I’ve had a crappy week. He mangles the English language, he’s gotten the down wrong at least twice, he’s gotten the yardage and whether or not a first down was reached grossly wrong at least twice. He’s working himself through the John Madden school of stating the blatantly obvious. I almost want the Patriots to suck next year so they don’t have to have him announcing as many of their games.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

How’s that heart holding up in overtime, Senor? How much you lovin’ Shaun Rodgers?

God, I don’t know how many more come from behind late in the game histrionics I can take without needing a trip to the ER.

First of all, GREAT game Browns.

Second of all, Browns MVP’s: Anderson, Rogers, Massaqoui (??) and Joshua Cribbs.

Jesus Christ, Cribbs outgained the Bengals offense on returns! That guy is an AMAZING returner. Best I’ve ever seen. And I’m getting tired of seeing him.

Honorable mention for Browns MVP: Brad St Louis, Bengals long snapper, without whom overtime wouldn’t have been possible. Twice. In the same game. And now four botched snaps on the year, one of which arguably cost us the margin in the Broncoes game. Take a bow, son, you’ve earned it.

Denver and Dallas have a good little contest goin’ here.

That last fg looked bad to me. Not at home so I can’t see a replay. I thought it was a tie.

I had the Bengals in my survivor pool this week. Whew.

I thought he’d missed it too from the back view, but it was up over the tops of the uprights and at an angle, and when you see the replay from the front view, it’s clearly good.

Nope. Saw a replay, it was good.

Well, they ah…survived. Barely.

Now GO CHARGERS!!!