Week 4 - Postgame Analysis, Breaking Even Is for Suckers

Hahaha... you are in the grips of the evil gambling monster I call Gamblore.

I am in total agreement about the moneyline. Maybe in the long run the
hedge scheme would work, especially if I concentrated on figuring the
payout schemes, but in the end, it's just too much work for too little
money. If I picked just the spreads this week, I would have broken
even. Instead, I got fancy, and I lost 15%. If I win both bets tonight
(CIN to cover, NE to win), I'll almost break even. Totally worthless.

Week 4 Box commentary:

The good:
CLE, BUF, ARI, TB, ATL, DET

Un-fucking-believable how right on the box is with these picks. All of
them were home dogs. All of them WON, much less covered. Home dogs
went 6-2 this week on my system, and 7-1 if my system had picked NYG (it
predicted a 3.1 spread, not 3.0, so it BARELY chose PHI). 7 and
freaking 1. If I had bet home dogs down the line, I would be up HUGE
(almost 100%). This is a pattern going back 2 years, too, so I really
like it once the season gets in sway and the pattern re-emerges. In
terms of team by team, I think all the above teams are losers for the
most part. TB is still overrated in my mind, since they lost to a
mediocre SEA, and beat the terrible NO, STL, and CAR, none of whom can
string together a win. Next week they play IND, then we'll see how good
they really are.

BUF and CLE will always hang around - they, like JAC, tend to play up or
down to their competition. BUF will get blown out for most of the year,
and CLE will be just annoying enough to be 8-8 or 7-9 this year. ATL,
ARI, and DET are total wildcards - depending on what kind of pasta they
ate the night before or how much fairy dust they sprinkle on themselves,
they will win or lose like champs or like they've never seen a football.

The bad:
PHI, SD, DEN, MIN

I know Peyton's good, but that was just a terrible performance by DEN.
How do you run for 160 yards in the FIRST HALF and don't score? They
had to settle for FGs twice, and if they could get in the endzone, it's
a different game. Plus, the D just looked tired. With SD, I knew they
were worse this season, but KC??? Both of us didn't like that the box
picked KC to win, despite picking SD on the spread (an oxymoron, but SD
to cover was a "mean regression override" module, it would have picked
KC to cover if it wasn't overridden). But KC? Herm Edwards and Norv
Turner are far and away the worst head coaches in the NFL - I figured
between the two of them on the same field, the better team should win
handily. But that was ugly. MIN has the third worst coach in Bam
Childress, and he was in full form against the Pack. Three times he
punted from GB territory - and it took GB 5 plays to get to where the
ball was originally punted. Not to mention punting on the GB 48 yd line
while LOSING in the 4th quarter by a TD. They are just terrible. I
hope the system never picks MIN again.

PHI killed us both. The box loves PHI, and has for years actually. But
they just look awful. Next week, if the Box wants PHI, I'm personally
calling McNabb and saying, "black QBs are no good", because that's the
only thing that seems to get him charged enough to win.

All in all, I've made the following decisions: NO moneyline bets unless
it's the top percentage pick on good lays (-200 or better). ONE parlay
pick - parlays, unless you're using a system like yours where parlays
are the majority of your bets and you've spread out your chances, lose.
They're just not good bets for the most part, but I like them, so
doing it once a week with my highest percentage possibilities could be
good. Even if my top 3 parlay looks like: BUF +3.5, DAL to win, DET to
win. That would have won me big this week.

Right now, I hate half the NFL almost as much as my fantasy football
peewee team.

My final bets ended up as:

Winners:
OAK +4.5
NE -330
BUF +3.5
GB -130

Losers:
Moneyline Parlay [DET, TB, NE, PIT] (fucking PIT blowing what should
have been an easy win)
Spread Parlay [TB, PHI, MIN]
CIN +7.5
NYJ -190
MIN +2

MTB