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Football Picks by Mike the Dealer
Sportsbooks are the land of the dumbest people
on earth, honestly, you would find more intelligent conversation
with people arguing over where in Kenya Obama
was born. People walk up to their friends and lament that Brett Favre,
the turnover machine, is being held back by the
Vikings who are using Adrian Peterson too much. Peterson is course an
unstoppable monster who kills insolent defenders
when they dare get in his way. There was a great deal of celebrating when
Donovan McNabb went down to injury, people were
assured that Michael Vick would now save the Eagles.
A man asked me if "Everyone who could play QB
for the Eagles went down, could Vick play week 2?" when I tried to explain
that Vick had been suspended for the first two
weeks and the NFL won't let him play no matter how many Eagles went down,
he didn't seem to want to hear it, he just wanted
Vick back on the field.
I had bet on the 49'ers vs the Cardinals, I thought
the Cards to be over-rated due to their fluke Super Bowl run, as the game
moved towards it's finish, a man declared that
the Cardinals, down 4, should kick a field goal, then go for an onsides
kick,
and kick another field goal to win. You have
about a 10% chance of recovering an onsides kick when the other team knows
it's coming, so 90% of the time you're conceding
the ball to your opponent. The fact that you're losing by 1 and giving
up the ball
didn't seem to affect him.
When the Cardinals went for it on 4th down and
failed to convert, the man was livid "How can you throw it to the running
back?!
You have to throw to Fitzgerald there!" the fact
that the Cardinals QB, Kurt Warner, was being driven to the ground by an
on-charging
49'ers defender, and in his last moments before
hitting the turf, threw the ball to the nearest man he could, didn't matter,
this man was
outraged that Warner didn't throw it to Fitzgerald.
The 49'ers then did what any team who's winning
in this spot should do, and that is run the ball three times up the gut,
bleeding clock
and forcing the the Cards to burn their final
2 time outs. The man, now seeing the 49'ers fail to come up with the game
clinching 3rd down,
went back to his orginal 'Field goal, onsides
kick, field goal' plan. Again, conceding possession of the balll while
losing with under 2 minutes
left in the game is clearly a winning tactic.
I learned that going for 2 to make it a 6 point
game, and thusly having the slim chance the other team might miss the extra
point and then
go to overtime, is a conspiracy led by the NFL
instead of sound tactics. I learned that the NFL still has it in for the
Raiders. I learned that
*everyone* is a fan of the Dallas Cowboys and
that really messes with the betting lines. I learned every weekend somebody
will lament
that they hit 10 out of 11 on a parlay and were
thisclose to being stinking rich, before team #11 failed them.
Besides all this, I'd like to announce the Mike
the Dealer Handicapping Challenge. I don't have much of a prize to offer,
except perhaps
internet fame and glory here on Bartcop. Monday
or Tuesday I'll post the contest lines on here, If you want to make picks,
E-mail me at
Mikethedealer@hotmail.com
and make your 5 picks against the spread, and the next week on Monday or
Tuesday I'll post the results
and the new lines. Every Friday I'll list my
picks, feel free to mail yours in anytime before kickoff on Sunday.
How does the spread work?
It's what it looks like, if the Cowboys are -3
vs the Giants, that means that they start the game losing by 3.
So if the final score of the real game is Cowboys
21, Giants 20, and you bet the Cowboys, you lose,
because the Giants had a three point handicap
and 'win' in our bet 23-21.
Have fun everyone and root against the Cowboys.
--Mike The Dealer.
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