THE BETTING FOOL
By a Man Who Should Know Better
One and three. Ninety-eight dollars at risk, $44.93 of it gone, and $901.41 becomes $856.48. That's under nine hundred, a line I have watched come toward me for about a month now.
The one that landed was the one the file liked best: Minnesota and the Giants managed 29 points in a 20-mile-an-hour wind on Thursday night against a 41.5. That was my only high-confidence read of December and it behaved exactly as advertised, which is a nice thing to be able to write once a month.
Now the arithmetic of the rest. Buffalo and Cleveland reached 43 on a 41.5 — a point and a half, one stopped drive anywhere. Los Angeles and Seattle then played a 38-37 game in a 17-mile-an-hour wind, 75 points against a total of 42.5, which is not a bad beat so much as a rebuttal delivered in person. And Kansas City lost outright in Nashville laying three and a half. I've been over the Seattle game three times looking for the flaw in the reasoning and I still can't find one, which is either integrity or stubbornness and I've stopped being able to tell.
Kansas City travels with both starting tackles out, Trent McDuffie missing from the corner room and Leo Chenal off the front — six names on the sheet — and the model still makes them 3.8 against a market 3.5. Tennessee has turned up in this column more than any club in football and has yet to hand me a dollar. There's eight miles an hour blowing in Nashville and not one cent of it belongs to me on a spread. Three-tenths, 50.5 percent, and it gets the least of my money.
Second straight week I've bet a total in East Rutherford, and the wind has gone from thirteen to twenty. Minnesota makes the trip without Christian Darrisaw and Javon Hargrave, the Giants are once more short Kayvon Thibodeaux and Evan Neal, and the board's 41.5 comes back 39.4 on my sheet. Two full points and 53.2 percent — the only high-confidence line I've printed since Thanksgiving, and a Thursday night in a December gale is precisely where the last ten years say to spend the money.
Take the best receiver off one roster — Davante Adams is doubtful for the Rams — and the left tackle off the other, with Charles Cross out for Seattle. Then stand the whole thing in a 17-mile-an-hour crosswind in the third week of December. A total of 42.5 was priced for a warmer month. I have 41.1 at 52.5 percent, and the honest worry is that these two know each other well enough to score anyway.
Cleveland's out column is six deep and includes its quarterback, its tight end, its right tackle and its best cornerback, and Buffalo comes to the lakefront without a kicker in Matt Prater. In sixteen miles an hour off the water, a missing kicker is worth points on its own — those are the afternoons when the 48-yarder becomes a punt. Market 41.5, model 40.2, 52.4 percent. I have bet more totals in that stadium than anywhere else this season and I sit exactly even in them, three and three, which feels about right for a place that decides its own weather.
“Bet less than you brag, learn more than you lose, and never trust a tout who smiles too much.”
— The Betting Fool
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