Saturday with NCAA FB plays picked up a bit. Especially with my new breakdowns of 3 types of plays. 1 Unit, 1/2 Unit and Leans. I am going to standardize this on all sports. The only additional category will be in MLB which has overnights.
In College football, on Saturday we did not fare too well. 1/2 Unit plays went 1-5 and Leans 1-2.
Our 5 1/2 unit plays were USC -4 winning 42-24, Arkansas +3 losing 7-28, Virginia +4 losing 17-37, BYU -4.5 losing 13-19 and N.Carolina +11 losing 35-47.
Our leans were Cinci +32.5 winning 14-36, W. Mich losing 14-28 and New Mexico -6.5 losing 28-30.
So a -1.7 unit day in college football
In MLB things were a bit different as we went 2-0 both on overnights.
Phil +161 won 5-4 and Seattle -109 won 9-1. So a +1.105 unit day in MLB
So far today I have sent out 2 plays.
Now on to the NFL. This is the day I have been waiting for. Seems my routine now is to decide at the end of the NFL season I do not wish to be an inconvenience with heading to the strip every week to turn in my picks.
And I typically do not change my mind until something in the back of my mind starts telling me how much I enjoy it::) And by 2 weeks before the contest starts I am on my way to sign up.
This year there are 2000 signups for 1500 a piece with first place around 1 million. Sounds great however with 2000 signup I imagine first place will be around 68% for the season if not higher.
The good news is they now pay the top 50 places which means over 62% would get you in the money. Piece of cake:)
My NFL contest picks for the first week are(Not Plays) :
Bears +6.5
Jacksonville +5
Detroit +4
Minn -3
Indianapolis +4
The top 5 picks in the contest for week 1 are:
Cinci -2.5
Houston -4
Tenn -2.5
Atlanta -6.5
Arizona -2
I am on the other side of 2 of the games. Remember last season that the top 5 got hammered the first half of the season. Typically you want to fade these all things being equal.
Also, note 4 of the 5 our public % sides and they are all favorites! Only Tenn is a contrary public side. With 2000 entrants I would expect that to be the situation every week. 4 to 1 seems about right.
The Bottom 5 in the contest are:
Indianapolis +4
Baltimore +2.5
Buffalo -8.5
New England -9
Kansas City +9
I am 1 of the bottom 5 and the least picked game of all 2000 entrants!
I would like to wager that by the end of the season the bottom 5 will beat the top 5. The odds, I would say at least 3-2 in favor of it. Maybe even closer to 2 to 1. If you’re a poker player you might be able to get down even money on this proposition with another player.
However, a caveat, few poker players are like me where I always consider that one of the outcomes could be that I lose a wager. Greater than 50% of the players do not factor this in. So when they win you get razzed but when they lose you get grief. Especially when you beat them consistently on these proposition wagers.
You have to consider whether it worth it. I know from experience as I took a lot of grief winning with proposition wagers from my fellow poker players:) Surprisingly they gamble day in and day out, yet, get upset with losses.
As Spock would say “it’s not logical”. Although he was referring to the hunting of the Hunchback Whale to extinction by humans, the concept is still appropriate.
Now if every game is a coin toss that would simply not be true. So we will see how this turns out as I will post how each is doing every Sunday morning with my picks.
Also breaking down the bottom 5 dogs are 3-2 over favorites. 3 are against the public, 1 is with the public and the other the public is around 53% on the favorite.
For subscribers, I send out a breakdown of each game as well as any thoughts I might have in addition to the breakdown. Typically this is used by subscribers that also do their own handicapping.
Good Luck Today
RickJ
RickJ’s Handicapping Picks
