Sports Betting Articles
In the Box: NFL Week 15
By Seth Doria
Minnesota 20, Chicago 13: Thank you for playing Philadelphia, Arizona, and Detroit. Better luck next year.
Also, if the Vikings do end up in Seattle for a playoff game, you can't possibly bet on Tarvaris Jackson in that kind of hostile environment. Adrian Peterson or no Adrian Peterson, Jackson is not a QB who can win a road playoff game. Not this year, anyway.
Fantasy Impact: LaDainian Tomlinson still has to go first in fantasy drafts next year, but is Peterson now No. 2? That's going to be a tough, tough call come next August.
Indianapolis 21, Oakland 14: I disagree with Peter King's assertion this was just a mail-in game for the Colts. The Raiders may be just 4-10, but they're a tough group with a lot of pieces in place for a step forward in 2008. A couple of weeks ago, I gave Lane Kiffin a C-, trending toward a D for his debut campaign. After watching them in this one, I'd put it at a C+, trending toward a B.
Fantasy Impact: One of the big mistakes Kiffin made was leaving Dominic Rhodes to rot on the bench all season (he had seven rushes for 41 yards in this one, including a 19-yarder). This was the first time Rhodes has gotten more than two carries in game since a poor Week 7 against the Chiefs. Even with the emergence of Justin Fargas (after the early domination by LaMont Jordan), Rhodes should have been a much bigger part of the offense this year.
(Unfortunately for Rhodes, he's finally going to get his chance with Fargas out for the year, and it's going to be against a monster Jacksonville defense. Sometimes life just ain't fair.)
Philadelphia 10, Dallas 6: The Cowboys went 1-of-13 on third down. They rushed for only 53 yards and gave up four sacks. They gave up more than 300 yards. At home.
That is not how champions play.
Fantasy Impact: Tony Romo's 35 touchdowns are great. His 17 picks are not. You can make the Super Bowl with a QB who throws a lot of interceptions (Rex Grossman had 20 last year), but you have to go all the way back to Phil Simms, with 22 in '86, to find a QB with that many picks and a championship ring.
Washington 22, New York Giants 10: If only Joe Gibbs hadn't blown so many close games, this would be a playoff team. They've always had the talent, and they've been playing with incredible intensity since Sean Taylor's death (Taylor's replacement, Reed Doughty, played a really solid game in this one). As long as they make the right hire this offseason, I'm picking them to win the NFC East next year.
(Dallas is going to have a down year as the T.O. cancer metastasizes. It's happened everywhere he's been. Don't fool yourself into thinking it won't here. Philly's about to enter a rebuilding phase. The Giants have Eli Manning.)
Fantasy Impact: No more Jeremy Shockey for the Giants, but Brandon Jacobs looked powerful and Sinorice Moss looked like a legit NFL threat for the first time in his career (while Amani Toomer just looked old).
Cleveland 8, Buffalo 0: Since there's not a whole lot of detail other than "lots of snow," the AFC-Democrat equivalent of last week's NFC-Republican comparison:
Jacksonville is Hillary Clinton (All the right pieces in place, but everybody's looking for a reason to doubt them)
Cleveland is Barack Obama (A breath of fresh air, a great story, but questions about their experience)
Tennessee is John Edwards (A close third, but nobody really believes they can do it)
(I'm not going to demean Buffalo or Houston, both at 7-7, by comparing them to Joe Biden or Denis Kucinich. They've given a great effort. Let's just leave it at that.)
Also, the Bills lost offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild, who has taken over as the new head coach at Colorado State. Fairchild played and coached as an assistant with the Rams, so it was a natural move for him. But this hurts the Bills, and I'd consider it a factor in their shutout loss this Sunday. (The snow was a bigger factor, but the Fairchild factor couldn't have helped.)
Fantasy Impact: You had to love that Phil Dawson 49-yarder. If I were to re-write my "who would you take if your life depended on it" column, I'd have to take Dawson over Adam Vinatieri.
New England 20, NY Jets 10: And there are the defense and running game.
Fantasy Impact: The weather forecast for Foxborough on Sunday is a balmy 44 with low chance of precipitation. Bet on a return to the aerial attack against the Dolphins. Laurence Maroney owners take heed.
Carolina 13, Seattle 10: Just when you think Seattle's turned the corner — BAM! They go 3-of-12 on third down and give up more than 300 yards to an offense led by quarterback Matt Moore.
And yet I fully expect them to blow out Baltimore this Sunday.
Fantasy Impact: The Seahawks would be better off without Shaun Alexander.
Miami 22, Baltimore 16: That was undoubtedly the happiest any 1-13 team has ever been in the history of the world.
The funny thing is if Matt Stover makes that kick in OT, the story is about how the Dolphins kicked the ball out of bounds to set up the Ravens' tying drive in regulation. Instead it's about how Cleo Lemon hit Greg Camarillo for the most celebrated Dolphins score since the Dan Marino era.
Anyway, good for Miami. Now they can get drunk for the next four days, then wake up with a hangover and realize they have to go play New England.
Fantasy Impact: I'm telling you — Troy Smith. He gives this Ravens team a whole different vibe. With a cross-country trip to Seattle on Sunday (take the Hawks no matter what the line), Brian Billick might as well see what Smith can do before they're faced with the Matt Ryan dilemma in the draft.
(Of course, they're saying they are going to start Kyle Boller instead. If there's one fate I'd like to avoid as a sports fan, it's to ever have a team I like be coached by Billick.)
San Diego 51, Detroit 14: Last week, I lamented on how bad the loss of fullback Lorenzo Neal would hurt the Chargers. Then Tomlinson ran for 116 yards and 2 TD — in the first half. And when it was all said and done, they had 274 total yards on the ground and their most points since 1985.
It looks like the Chargers might jump over the AFC North champ to land the third seed, which would negate a San Diego/Jacksonville playoff game. Too bad. That would have been fun.
Fantasy Impact: It's barely a footnote on a disastrous day for Detroit, but Calvin Johnson had his first 100-yard game. Watch for his break-out next year.
Jacksonville 29, Pittsburgh 22: Can we really consider the Steelers a legitimate playoff contender any more? Right now, they're a tie-breaker away from waking up in Cleveland or San Diego on wild card weekend, wondering what the hell just happened.
Fantasy Impact: This ain't your weird uncle's Pittsburgh defense. Watch for Steven Jackson to have a big game on Thursday night.
Green Bay 33, St. Louis 14: The Packers have the best "all under 30 LB corps" in the NFL.
Fantasy Impact: Jackson still put up another monster game (24 rushes for 143 yards, a 6.0 average). How do you choose between him and Peterson in next year's fantasy draft? Why am I already worried about this?
Houston 31, Denver 13: Here's betting the Texans trade off Sage Rosenfels for a second-rounder in this year's draft. They're not going to want a quarterback controversy with Matt Schaub and Rosenfels' stock will never be higher.
Fantasy Impact: No matter who's at QB in 2008, Andre Johnson has to be one of the first five WRs off the board.
Tennessee 26, Kansas City 17: They are who we thought they were!
(Is there a more over-quoted line in sports right now? I think we've passed Jim Mora's "Playoffs?!?" rant. It's historic, really.)
Fantasy Impact: You have to feel for Tony Gonzalez. You just get the sense the end is near, and he's not going to go out on a high note.
San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 13: Always nice to have a Saturday night NFL game. A few notes:
1. Marshall Faulk was good in the booth. Deion Sanders was not. They should have switched out Steve Mariucci (on the sidelines) and Sanders.
2. Why did Shaun Hill look so much more comfortable in this offense than either Alex Smith or Trent Dilfer? Could it be we've (I've) been unfairly blaming this whole mess on offensive coordinator Jim Hostler when it was really just two QBs who didn't get it? Or has the arrival of Ted Tollner really made that large an impact?
3. 6:21 left in the fourth, 49ers up seven. Fourth-and-two from the Bengals' 24. Instead of kicking the field goal to make it a two-possession game, Mike Nolan goes for it. Hill's pass falls incomplete and the Bengals take over with a chance to tie with a TD. Cincinnati couldn't take advantage (good game by Mike Singletary's defense), but that was a really bad decision on Nolan's part. 49ers fans should be worried about that.
Fantasy Impact: I'm expecting big things from Frank Gore next year.
New Orleans 31, Arizona 21: The Saints are going to have a very long offseason thinking about how they wasted their season.
Fantasy Impact: I hope Reggie Bush is watching Aaron Stecker run and learning. The lesson: stop being such a fancy boy.
Tampa Bay 37, Atlanta 3: Another big win for the Bucs, another week of nobody talking about the Bucs.
(They ran the ball 48 times for 190 yards and controlled the clock for 42:59. There's really not much else to say.)
Also, why would any pro owner green light the hiring of a big-name college coach ever again? Seriously. How many times to we have to go through this? It doesn't work in basketball. It doesn't work in football. Rick Pitino. John Calipari. Nick Saban. Billy Donovan. Steve Spurrier. And now Bobby Petrino. It just doesn't work. Once college coaches reach the top of the mountain (or even just close to the top), they're ruined. No amount of money will make the pros as satisfying as what is really the best job in the world — college sports icon.
That's not to say no college coach should ever be given another shot at a pro job. Boston College coach Jeff Jagodzinski came from the Green Bay Packers, and I believe he will make a fine transition back to the pro game some day. Reggie Theus came to the Sacramento Kings from New Mexico State, but, as he put it at the time, he was a pro guy in a college job. That's cool. But the next time somebody thinks about Urban Meyer or Bob Stoops or Billy Gillespie, stop, rewind, delete that thought and change the channel.
Fantasy Impact: I'm thinking perhaps Atlanta should pick a quarterback in the draft. They only completed four passes on Sunday. They averaged 1.9 yards per pass. That's really bad.
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