NFL - Week 2

[admin]

Week 2 of the NFL kicks off on Monday morning AEST. Despite their 35-7 thrashing at the hands of the Ravens last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers (1.10) will start with the shortest odds this weekend when they host the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle's first round game against San Francisco unravelled in less than a minute when Ted Ginn Jr. returned both a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns late in the fourth quarter. The highest Total Points O/U for this weekend goes to the Chargers @ Patriots (+53.5) after Tom Brady threw for a team-record 517 yards and four touchdowns against Miami on Monday Night. The Patriots are on a nine-game streak where they have scored more than 30 points in a game.

Below are the latest odds (subject to change). Note that the teams are listed using the American format, with the home team listed second.

[pominoz]

For curiosity's sake I will continue to post the picks from the 'experts' at CBS Sports.

For the head to head picks (not necessarily betting suggestions) all five experts agreed on:

Carolina v Green Bay (1.19)
Detroit (1.24) v Kansas City
New Orleans (1.33) v Chicago
NY Jets (1.22) v Jacksonville
Pittsburgh (1.10) v Seattle
Tennessee v Baltimore (1.38)
San Francisco v Dallas (1.60)
NY Giants (1.35) v St. Louis

For the line picks the only game that every expert agreed on was:

Minnesota v Tampa Bay (+3.5)

Four of the five agreed on:

Buffalo v Oakland (+4.5)
Carolina v Green Bay (-10.5)
Indianapolis (+2.5) v Cleveland <-- however the expert with the best record picked Cleveland
Pittsburgh (-14.5) v Seattle
Tennessee (+6.5) v Baltimore
San Francisco v Dallas (-3.5)

[the_burninator]

Don't have much time this week for any write-up analysis; but the results from my 'basic' model are as follows in order of best to worst;
BAL-5.5
GB-9.5
TB+3.0
SD+6.5
IND+2.5
WAS-3.5

U/O;
WAS u45.0
BUF u43.0 & ATL u49.5
PIT o40.5
NE u54.0
NO u47.0

Now I just need to pick a few, that'll be the hard part..

[the_burninator]

My 3 best leans atm on the sides would be;
Tampa, Indy and San Diego.

[pominoz]

Does anyone know why they squeeze so many games into Sunday? Is it to provide consistency in terms of time between games? You'd think for TV revenue purposes, etc, they'd spread them out over Fri-Mon more.

[the_burninator]

I always thought it was to do with college football, which as histroically been played on Saturday's. College football is now even moving towards Thursday and Friday night games. The SEC in NCAAF is just as powerful as the NFL, alot of people in the south east of America live and die college ball and don't give two hoots about the NFL..

[pominoz]

That makes a lot of sense. 32 NFL teams, 50 states, plus a few states have more than one team, which leaves huge sections of the country with no NFL representation.

Looking at the world's largest stadiums on Wikipedia the 90,000+ list is dominated by US college teams.

You'd imagine the top NCAA football teams do well financially, with all the strict rules on player payments.

From Wikipedia:

Division I athletic programs generated $8.7 billion in revenue in the 2009-2010 academic year. Men's teams provided 55% of the total, women's teams 15%, and 30% was not categorized by sex or sport. Football and men's basketball are usually the only sports that are profitable for universities, with others usually losing money. The BYU Cougars, for example, in 2009 had revenue of $41 million and expenses of $35 million, resulting in a profit of $5.5 million or about 16% margin. Football (60% of revenue, 53% profit margin) and men's basketball (15% of revenue, 8% profit margin) were profitable; women's basketball (less than 3% of revenue) and all other sports were unprofitable.