NFL - Week 1

I could not be happier that the NFL season is finally upon us.  Spending the entire Sunday at the sports bar, playing fantasy football and wagering on the most popular professional sport in America.

Before I get my picks down, there are a couple of guidelines I follow when looking for early season bets:

a. Try to avoid laying points on road favorites against mediocre teams.

b. Unders hit far more often early in the season than they do later in the season

Now, on to the picks:

1. New Orleans Saints @ Indianapolis Colts - Total Under 50 (-110) - 1.1 Units

Here's my seemingly crazy play of the week that goes against what the entire betting public thinks will happen. 

The first reason for this play is that it usually takes offenses a couple of weeks to get up to the speed and timing with which the defenses open the season.  It makes sense because while executing offensive plays takes precision and timing, it does not require the level of coordination to play defense. 

The second reason goes to what I anticipate to be the game plan from New Orleans' perspective.  While the Saints certainly have the offensive ability to get into a shootout with the Colts, I'm sure they'd rather not have the game come to that (duh!).  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the way to avoid a high scoring game is to keep Peyton Manning off the field and the way to accomplish that is to keep your offense on the field by giving the ball to Deuce McAllister early and often. 

Defensively, the Colts are very fast and run the traditional Tampa Bay Cover 2 defense.  This defense almost never blitzes and relies on the quick, undersized defensive linemen (Dwight Freeney) to disrupt the other team's offensive flow.  During the season when Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl, they only lost four games all season, but they lost both times they played the Saints.  In both of those games, Jim Haslett (of all people) seemed to have figured out how to defeat a great cover 2 defense......run the ball straight at them with a big running back.  Of course, that running back in both of those games was Deuce McAllister.  Fortunately, the Colts are not a great Cover-2 defense, but rather are merely average.  One possibly important factor in this gameplan is that DT Booger McFarland is out for the season, removing one of Indianapolis' best run defenders and a big presence in the middle of the line.

Finally tying this together is Sean Payton's experience in the NFC Championship game last season.  The Saints went to Chicago and played a great Cover-2 defense.  Several times during the offseason, Coach Payton referred to his flawed game plan which only had McAllister run the ball 9 times in poor field conditions and how he wished he had run the ball more. 

Hopefully, Coach Payton has this in mind.  My only regret here is that I didn't wait longer to place this bet as the line has climbed to O/U 53.  Also, parlaying the Saints +6 and Under 53 is probably a very good bet as it has to be improbable that this game goes under without the Saints covering.  The parlay also has the added benefit of increasing your reward by paying 2.6:1, thereby only requiring that you hit it 28% of the time.

2. Kansas City Chiefs @ Houston Texans (-3 @ -115) - 1.15 Units

I'm not exactly sure how much stock to put into preseason performances, but if the last four weeks are any indication, the Texans should easily cover this 3 points.  Kansas City never scored more than 12 points in any game while the Texans never scored less than 19. 

I expect the Texans' run defense to be much improved this year with the addition of first round pick Amobi Okoye at nose tackle.  Okoye should take up the space in the middle and keep blockers off of DeMeco Ryans and allow Mario Williams to see more one-on-one blockers on the left side of the line.  Adding in their first round pick from 2002, CB Dunta Robinson, the Texans have the foundation for a solid offense.

On the other side of the ball, everyone knows that Matt Schaub was brought in to be the new Quarterback.  Of course, they will likely have some similar problems as before as they really didn't do much to address their turnstile-like offensive line.  At any rate, Schaub and Ahman Green should present some improvement over their 19.1 ppg average from a year ago.

In the meantime, the Chiefs look like they're ready to make it a go with Damon Huard and Larry Johnson.  It should be noted that Johnson did not play during any of the preseason games.  However, after watching the Chiefs starters on both offense and defense against the Saints in the third preseason game, I don't think adding Johnson and Huard (who also did not play in that game) will help all that much.  Their defense gave up yards in bunches and their offensive line was not effective in blocking the Saints pass rush.

Whenever I see all of these factors, it is natural to bet the home team when only being asked to lay 3 points.

3. Detroit Lions @ Oakland Raiders - Total Under 39.5 - 1.1 Units

Here's a play right out of the early season playbook.  I have to believe that the reason this number is available is the considerable publicity the Lions have gotten during the offseason after adding Tatum Bell and Calvin Johnson to an already improving offense.  However, what most people seem to have forgotten is that, in addition to their awful offense, the Raiders actually have one of the best defenses in the league.  In fact, the Raiders only played over 39.5 points in 2 of 16 games last season. 

Between the combination of new players at key positions on both teams' offenses and the Raiders actually playing stiff defense, I really like this play.

4. Pittsburgh Steelers (-4.5 @ -110) @ Cleveland Browns - 1.1 Units

And after listing my two guidelines, I go and break one.  The exception here is that the Browns will consider this season a success if they rise to the level of mediocrity.  They are terrible and Charlie Frye (not Brady Quinn) will be starting this week.  Add in the motivation of new Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin to win his first game and to beat a divisonal rival convincingly and I think this is a very solid bet.