[Lori]

Thanks for running this.

214
126
112
206

Good start to the season, but these things change a bit fast when they go wrong, so onwards....

I'm not particuarly keen on any of these this week, but that's what makes the challenge so , er, challenging [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

$400 DET/PHI u44 #214

Detroit like to throw it, and for all their faults Philly don't like giving up huge pass plays. In fact they don't like to really give up much at all. Jones might be back for Detroit which could tempt them to run a bit more and balance out the offense, but we don't really mind runs when we're betting unders.
He's reported to be quite sharp, but they're not going to say otherwise are they? The fact is that he's got to be a bit behind schedule, so hopefully he's just about sharp enough to grind tedious first downs.

On the other side of the ball, Philly have looked, er, underprepared (for want of being polite) and a bad start to this game could see the crowd on McNabb's back again. Westbrook isn't certain to be playing and generally the Eagles look like they have it to do to really pick up the offense at this time.

All this probably has you asking "Why not Detroit with the points then?" Well, it's a personal rule of mine in this to only pick once per game, and I slightly prefer the unders.


$300 Raiders -3 #126

I have a policy from around weeks 6 thru 13 to bet teams that look like they won't get many wins this season to beat slightly better teams when at home. Well it's only week three, but there's not much I like this week, so thought I'd put that rule into play rather earlier than I'd like.

The theory of course is that the teams are not stupid, and they know that they're not going to get many chances to impress the home fans. It's worked well for me and you'll definitely see it again this season.
Coupled with the fact that the Raiders may not be quite as bad as we're expecting, and that the Browns are coming off a 'miracle' win and I think we have a nice line here.


$200 Packers +4.5 #112

A straight up gamble that the Chargers are still not quite ready on offense. I hate week three (Weeks 1-2 I assume offenses are not at full speed, week four I assume they are), but I really can't find much I prefer, so there it is.

$100 BUF/NE u42 #206

BUF +17 seems to be the sexy play this week but I feel this is just a bit stronger. If BUF get within 17, I personally don't think it will be because they stick a ton of points on the board. With this play I think we cover quite a few of the same games that cover the +17, but we also have 35-0 and the likes on our side.
If the final score is 35-21 so be it.

Lori