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Welcome to the Football Forecastor, home to Jim "Dirtydog"
Campbell, who is considered one of the nations most prolific sports
handicappers, we specialize in NFL and College Football handicapping
and take sports betting to a whole new level by treating sports
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Hello my
friends..
Where has
time gotten to? Is it just me or does it seem like just last week
that we were closing out the NFL preseason and were preparing to
enter the NFL's regular season, needless to say, here we are in the
AFC/NFC Championship round already! We've had a pretty good
postseason thus far in both College and NFL action with regard to
our college bowl selections and NFL playoff selections.
We
cultimated the college bowl season with a 4****Best Bet winner on
the Auburn Tigers over Oregon and for good measure we almost nailed
a 3***Play Selection winner on the UNDER 73 as well, that win on
Auburn gives me a perfect 12-0 ATS mark over the past twelve years
in the college National Championship game.
In the NFL
playoffs I have been fortunate enough to cash winning tickets on
four of five wagers (4-1 ATS) thus far, including a huge 10*Best Bet
winner on the UNDER in the Jet/Indy Wildcard game, which was my
largest wager of the season, last week we nailed another 4****Best
Bet winner with the OVER 37 in the Pitts/Balt game and also
collected on a 3***Play Selection winner with Chicago over Seattle.
Hopefully the football gods will continue to shine on me thorough
the Super Bowl where I have been fortunate enough to have gone 9-3
ATS over the past twelve years.
PITTSBURGH
-4 Jets.......................................WINNER
Sunday
1/23/11 6:30 pm est.
4****BEST
BET
TWO TEAM PARLAY.........................................WINNER
PITTSBURGH
-4.....GREEN BAY -3.5
2**Play
Selection
The early
Sunday game has a start time of 3:00 pm est. and has the Green Bay
Packers visiting the Chicago Bears, the Packers opened up as a -3
point road favorite and was immediately bet up to -3.5, meanwhile,
the O/U opened up at 43.5 and that's where it stayed for four days
until falling to 43 and then falling back to 42.5 this past
Saturday. Obviously the sharps liked Green Bay laying a mere FG and
hit it hard which caused the number to move to Packers -3.5,
however, Joe Public has been hitting Green Bay as well as evidenced
by current betting trends showing that 66% of all wagers have been
on the Packers. I really don't expect the number to move off Green
Bay -3.5 to -4 because that would in all likelihood cause the books
to get slammed with sharp Chicago +4 money in the form of parlay
and/or teaser action.
Historically
speaking, the Green Bay and Chicago rivaly has been a virtual dead
heat when considering that since 1985 these two teams have met a
total of 52 times, in those games the Packers are 28-24 straight up,
are 27-24-1 ATS and the O/U is 26-26. More recently, overall since
the start of the 2000 season Green Bay is 13-9 straight up and
13-8-1 ATS 9-13 O/U versus Chicago, however, inside that number the
Packers have posted a mark of 4-2 straight up and ATS and 2-4 O/U
versus Chicago as a road favorite including a 17-20 loss this season
at Chicago as a -3 point road favorite.
Chicago is
getting a lot of love in this contest because they did in fact
defeat Green Bay 20-17 as a +3 point home doggie back in September,
however, let's not forget that contest was a strange one indeed as
the Packers were flagged a total of 18 times for a mega 152 penalty
yards while Chicago was only flagged 5 times for a measly 38 yards.
The Packers actually out-yarded the Bears by a 379 to 276 margin in
that contest and held a staggering 35:49 to 24:11 edge in TOP (time
of possession), since that week three game the Packers have gotten
their act together in the penalty department to the point that over
their last six contests they have been one of the least penalized
teams in the league.
Green Bay
has the better defense in this contest which over their past six
outings have been the NFL's second best team when it comes to least
amount of points allowed per 100 yards versus Chicago's 21st
ranking over the same span, the Packers also hold a huge defensive
edge in terms of yards allowed per pass over the same span with a #
6 league ranking versus Chi-Town's 21st ranking.
Offensively the Packers hold a definitive edge with QB Aaron Rodgers
over Jay Cutler, Rodgers has been playing as hot as the proverbial
firecracker over his past four contests where he has completed a
mind-blowing 72.7 % of his passes versus Bear QB Jay Cutler's
completion rate of 53.8 % over the same span.
Dating
back to 1985, all January games played between divisional opponents
have gone an amazing 93-93 straight up, 91-91-4 ATS and 96-88-2 O/U,
during this same time span January divisional road favorites have
posted a mark of 16-5 straight up and 12-8-1 ATS and 9-12 O/U,
inside that number road favorites of between 3.5 and 6.5 points have
gone 5-0 straight up and 4-1 ATS and 3-2 O/U. In head-to-head
January action Green Bay and Chicago have only ever met twice since
1985 and the Packers have won both.
In the big
picture Green Bay has the better overall defense and the better QB,
however, Chicago has the edge of having had a week of rest and are
playing at home in this contest, in the end this is a meeting
between two divisional rivals that know each other all too well. I
think Green Bay wins the contest and advances to the Super Bowl
against the Pittsburgh Steelers but I am not crazy about laying -3.5
road points in a playoff game that pits two divisional rivals
against one another, for that reason I will play the Packers in a
two team parlay with the Steelers for a 2**Play Selection, if things
go as I suspect they will with Pittsburgh easily defeating the Jets
and Green Bay covering the number I will have more than doubled by
initial wager with half the risk.
Onward to
the second game of the day which has the New York Jets visiting the
Pittsburgh Steelers, sharps banged Pittsburgh hard as the opening
number of Pittsburgh -3 moved up to -3.5 in no time at all and moved
up to its current level of Pittsburgh -4 by this past Saturday
evening. The O/U on this contest opened at 38.5 which is where the
posted total stayed until its recent slide downward to a solid 38,
probably due to a combination of the media talking heads pounding
their opinion home that this will be a low scoring game along with
the latest weather reports that say this contest will be played in
near zero degree temps.
A mega 79%
of all wagers on this contest have been on the Jet money-line and
its no small wonder as ole Joe Public tends to base his opinion on
last weeks results and in that regard he witnessed the Steelers
being down on the scoreboard by a 21-7 count to Baltimore last week
before coming back to win 31-24, ole Joe also got to witness the
Jets defeating New England by a 28-21 final as a +9.5 point road
doggie which was a nice trade off for those of us that like
Pittsburgh in this contest as the Jets win over New England over
shadowed just how dominant the Steelers were in the second half of
their contest against Baltimore with regard to holding the Ravens to
-4 yards of offense in the third quarter and holding them to a grand
total of 28 yards in the half.
The Jets
are getting a lot of love in this contest based on their past two
playoff wins this season at Indianapolis and at New England as well
as their earlier 22-17 win at Pittsburgh five weeks ago. A glance at
the previous game played during the regular season between the Jets
and Pittsburgh reveals that the Steelers actually out-yarded gang
green by a 378 to 276 yard margin, out first-downed the Jets by a 25
to 17 margin, and won the TOP (time of possession) battle 31:18 to
28:42...yet the Jets won the contest on the basis of three plays.
Jet Brad
Smith ran the opening kickoff back 97 yards for a TD (only one
allowed by Pittsburgh this season), Jet QB Mark Sanchez pulled one
of the best play fakes I had ever seen in the third quarter on a
naked bootleg to tie the game, then in the fourth quarter with the
Jets up by three points Steeler RB Mewelde Moore was tackled in the
end zone for a safely with 2:38 left in the contest which put
Pittsburgh down by five points on the scoreboard and forced them to
go for a TD at games end.
The point
spread on this contest is the same as it was in the first meeting
but the dynamics are different in that Pittsburgh was without the
services of all-world safety Troy Polamalu and starting TE Health
Miller in the first meeting but will have both back for this
contest. Also, a good argument could be made that the Jets won't
have much left in their collective gas tanks after defeating the
Colts and Patriots in back to back weeks.
You have
to remember that it was Colt Peyton Manning and company that knocked
the Jets out in the AFC Championship game last year, so the playoff
meeting this year was a very emotionally charged revenge affair and
then just last week these same Jets defeated their arch nemesis the
New England Patriots to get to this weeks game after the Patriots
had thoroughly demolished the Jets by a 45-3 final earlier, in
essence a good argument could be made that these Jets have already
played their AFC Championship game and their Super Bowl over the
past two weeks and could very well be walking into a buzzzzz saw
this week.
In the big
picture Pittsburgh has the better defense, has the better QB, has
the homefield advantage, and has had a week of rest that the Jets
did not, factor in the fact that the Jets are playing on the road
again for the third straight week and are actually on the road again
for the ffth time in a six week span and I smell a blow out in the
making.
Looking
back in time we see that since 1985 Pittsburgh is 18-11 straight up
and 18-10-1 ATS in all January games, make the Pittsburgh Steelers a
home favorite in January of between 3 and 6.5 points and they are a
perfect 8-0 straight up and ATS and 7-1 O/U and that includes a
perfect mark of 5-0 straight up and ATS in all January games since
2002. In the end analysis, Pittsburgh is a battle tested team with
18 players on their roster that have two Super Bowl rings and they
are being led by one of the best QB's that the game has seen in Big
Ben Roethlisberger who is currently ranked 8th all time
in the NFL with a passer rating of 92.5, ranked 5th in
the history of the NFL in career yards per attempt (8.04), and is
ranked 12th all time in career completion percentage with
a rate of 63.07%
Contrast
Roethlisberger's statistical make up with those of Jet QB Mark
Sanchez and we see that the young Jet QB has a career two year TD to
INT tally of 29 to 33, a completion percentage of 54.4% and a passer
rating of 70.2. I'll take Big Ben Roethlisberger and the Steeler
defense in this contest thank you very much, look for the Pittsburgh
defense to force Sanchez to throw the ball as a means of playing
catch up on the scoreboard, when that happens Pittsburgh will break
this game wide open and win by double-digit points due to Sanchez
miscues.
Take care
and be well
Jim
By releasing these key selections later in the week and
closer to game time we are able to take advantage of the latest
information available which includes the latest weather and injury
reports as well as any "Line Movements"
that have taken place.
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