NFL Week 8 207 Denver +3.5 1 unit
Interesting debates on the state of the NFL right now. FWIW -- According to my raw numbers, which are based purely on stats, the lines appear short on a lot of the chalk. The doesn't mean I was smart enough to play the supposedly "short" sides though. :(
Indy, New Orleans and Dallas all look short again this week. Indy's strength of schedule is so weak, it is hard to know just how good they are. They've sliced through the crap teams, but just about everyone else has, too. The San Diego line is about right, according to my numbers, and Chicago is in the ballpark (but still short).
One problem I am having is trying to figure out how to play the totals with the dregs. I've been on the wrong side of a number of posted and not posted totals with the bottom-feeder teams. It's almost impossible to figure out whether they will show up at all, really.
If the books want to balance action on the sides, I think they really need offer better numbers on some of the crap. It's like SEC vs. Sun Belt in September right now, and there are no signs of it letting up.
All that said, strip away the dregs and say New Orleans, which looks like a straight powerhouse, and the NFL is not really all that different from any of the other years. If you were smart enough to figure out that the Giants were great vs. lesser, but maybe average to slightly above average overall, then Arizona was a great bet last night. Again, I was not that smart. But those bets are still out there; they are just harder to find, I think, because the strength-of-schedules are just out of whack right now as the dregs screw up the league.
