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Hello my friend..
Another NFL season
concludes and enters the ole history book when the winner is
determined in Super Bowl XLII on Sunday Feb. 3, 2008 from the
University
of
Phoenix
stadium which is home to the Arizona Cardinals in
Glendale
Arizona
.
The weatherman is
calling for a 60% chance of showers starting during the am hours and
lasting thru Monday morning with winds of 10 to 20 mph increasing to
20 to 30 mph, however, this will not affect the game in anyway
whatsoever as this stadium is the first of its kind with a
retractable roof and features a “roll-in” grass field.
The New England
Patriots and the
New York
“football” Giants will represent the AFC and NFC respectively in
this years’ season finale which will be the Patriots fourth trip
to the big game in the past seven years and the Giants first showing
since their 34-7 loss to
Baltimore
following the 2000 season.
Super Bowl Sunday
continues to get bigger and bigger with regard to the amount of
money wagered on the event and this year will be no different as an
estimated $100 to $120 million will be legally bet in Las Vegas and
probably 1 to 1.5 times that amount at offshore outlets, amazingly
enough, those totals do not include the bar/club pools in which you
buy a square for anywhere from $5 to $200 or the office pools and
certainly does not include the amount taken in by your friendly
neighborhood bookie.
Some gamblers enter
the final game on the plus side of the ledger while others enter the
contest on the negative side of things, in either circumstance its
never a smart move to wager more on the Super Bowl than you did on
any normal game during the regular season and its definitely not a
smart move to try to recoup past losses on a single game no matter
how confident you feel in what the outcome will be, with that in
mind its always a wise decision to keep your wagers on the Super
Bowl small.
Like any regular
season NFL game it’s generally a good idea to know any and all
past Super Bowl trends and history before actually breaking down the
matchup itself, with that in mind this is the 42nd
Championship Game and we've got some solid information to dissect,
for example, did you know that the NFC holds a slim 21-20 straight
up edge over the AFC or that the NFC has posted an overall mark of
21-17-3 ATS to date in the big game?
However, in the
last eleven Super Bowls the AFC’s representative has posted a mark
of 8-3 straight up and 6-3-2 ATS, interestingly enough, New England
has been involved in four of the past eleven Super Bowls and posted
a mark of 3-1 straight up and 1-2-1 ATS while the Giants made one
appearance during this span and posted a mark of 0-1 straight up and
ATS.
The largest margin
of victory for the NFC was a 45 point win by
San Francisco
over
Denver
(55-10) as a 12 point favorite following the 1989 regular season
while the largest margin of victory by the AFC was a 27 point win in
Super Bowl XXXV when
Baltimore
crushed the Giants 34-7 as a three point favorite. As a side note,
an eye opening 17 of the NFC’s 21 Super Bowl wins have been by
double digit point margins.
One of the
“safest” ways to bet on this years Super Bowl is probably by
making a “money-line” wager, in that regard a check of the ole
history book reveals that the installed favorite has posted a mark
of 29-12 straight up and 21-17-3 ATS, as you can see the installed
favorite has won the contest straight up 65.85% of the time.
However, you might want to keep this mind, the higher seeded team in
the past 12 Super Bowls has posted a mark of 1-9-2 ATS!
Anything can happen
in this years’ Super Bowl, who knows, maybe the Giants will find a
way to defeat
New England
straight up, however, oddly enough there have been only eight games
in Super Bowl history in which the favorite won the game in straight
up fashion but failed to cash the ticket. The overall record of the
straight up winning favorites is a phenomenal mark of 21-5-3 ATS.
Interestingly enough, it was New England who was installed as a 7
point favorite against both
Carolina
and
Philadelphia
in their previous two Super Bowls that failed to cover 2 of those 5
ATS losses!
As mentioned above,
the weatherman is calling for a 60% chance of showers and winds are
expected to gust at 20 to 30 mph by game time, that means that this
game will in all likelihood be played under the “retractable”
roof which in turn will make this the 13th Super Bowl
played in a dome-type atmosphere. Only 7 out of the 32 teams in the
NFL play in a dome-type stadium and 5 of those 7 dome-type stadiums
belong to NFC teams!
Who knows, maybe
that’s the reason that the NFC has won 8 of the 12 Super Bowls
played indoors, however, it should be noted that the favorite in
those 12 games posted a mark of 7-3-2 ATS.
It’s a safe
assumption to make that Super Bowl winning teams in all likelihood
won the “stat wars” in those games as well, a little research
revealed some really startling facts. For example, would you believe
that the team that rushes for more yards owns a mark of 34-7
straight up and 30-8-3 ATS or for that matter that the team that
averages more passing yards per attempt has posted an amazing mark
of 36-5 straight up and 31-7-3 ATS?
Turnovers play a
huge part in any game, however, turnovers are magnified that much
more in the big game as history reveals that the team that wins the
T/O battle has won 38 of the past 41 Super Bowls in straight up
fashion and posted a mark of 35-6 ATS in those games, meanwhile, the
team that wins the TOP battle has a remarkable record of 30-11
straight up and 28-10-3 ATS.
Here’s an eyebrow
raiser for you, teams that win at least three of the above stat
categories have posted a record of 35-1 straight up and 30-5-1 ATS
while teams that managed to win all four of the listed stat
categories have posted a lofty mark of 23-0 straight up and 21-1-1
ATS! Oddly enough, would you believe that the only team to post an
ATS loss while winning all four stat categories was….(drum roll
please)….the New England Patriots when they failed to cover
against the Eagles as a 7 point favorite in their last Super Bowl
appearance.
GIANTS +12
New England
Sunday 02/03/08
6:18 pm est
3***Play
Selection
How hard do you
think it is to defeat a same opponent twice or possibly three times
in the same season? Think about it this way, its not all that often
that a team sweeps their division when using divisional play as an
example, unless of course it’s a really bad team we are talking
about versus a really good team, the reason is mainly because teams
in the same division face each other at least twice each season and
as the saying goes…familiarity breeds contempt.
In this years’
Super Bowl we have two teams that have already squared off two times
this season, the Patriots won 27-20 over the Giants during the final
week of the preseason and the Patriots won again 38-35 over the
Giants in the final week of the regular season, oddly enough, these
two teams will square off again in the final game of the post
season!
New England
was installed as a 3.5 point home favorite in that final preseason
meeting, was installed as a 13 point road favorite in the regular
season finale and are now installed as a 12 point neutral field
favorite. As a side note, the Giants have posted a mark of 10-4
straight up and 11-3 ATS in their last 14 revengers.
During the Giants
playoff run to the Super Bowl they managed to knock three divisional
winners out of the playoffs and two of those three playoff wins came
against teams that had defeated them during the regular season. The
G-Men opened their regular season with a mark of 0-2 straight up and
ATS when they lost 35-45 at Dallas as a 6 point road doggie to open
the year and then in week two came home and lost to visiting Green
Bay 13-35 as a 3 point home favorite.
The Giants exacted
their revenge against
Dallas
(21-17) as a 7 point road doggie and against
Green Bay
(23-20) as a 7.5 doggie when they defeated both on the road in the
post season in upset fashion and for the third time this season will
face a team they played and lost to during the regular season.
Its hard to believe
that so many media pundits and supposed experts are picking New
England to defeat these Giants in blowout fashion and are also
predicting the game to exceed the posted O/U of 54.5, we backed San
Diego taking the mega +14 points in the AFC Championship but
unfortunately gave it back as we also had the OVER 46.5 in that game
that ended with New England winning by the final of 21-12.
As outlined in our
analysis of the AFC Championship game, the Patriots have been a very
very very very lucky team thus far with regard to posting their 16-0
straight up mark during the regular season, a closer inspection
reveals that these Patriots had a lot of really close calls with
regard to posting 4 wins by 4 points or less and also struggled
against the Jets (20-10) for a total of five close calls.
New England
didn’t look dominant in either playoff win over Jacksonville or
over the Chargers and both of those affairs took place in Foxboro,
most discerning to Patriot backers should be the fact that three of
New England’s near defeats took place when on the road away from
the friendly confines of Gillette Field, the Colts led by double
digit points before losing 20-24, Baltimore had them on the ropes
before some really terrible referee calls allowed New England to
score at the games end and pull out a 27-24 win and finally these
Giants had them beat as well before dropping a 35-38 decision.
So what do you
think? Do the Giants have a viable chance of pulling an outright
upset over the Patriots? Hey, anything is possible, keep in mind
that historically this is the third time in the past ten years that
the two teams meeting in the Super Bowl had met previously during
the regular season in that same year and in the previous two
occurrences the team that lost straight up in the regular season
meeting went on to win the Super Bowl in the rematch.
In 1999
St Louis
and
Tennessee
faced each other in week eight, the Titans won the regular season
meeting 24-21 but lost 23-16 when they met again in that years Super
Bowl. The other most recent occurrence took place during the 2001
season when
St Louis
visited
New England
and won by the final of 24-17 when they hooked up in week ten,
however, the Patriots won the Super Bowl rematch by a final tally of
20-17.
In the big picture
these Giants enter this affair with the knowledge that they can
indeed play with
New England
and hold their own after facing them twice this season, thusly, they
will not be intimidated in any way, remember, this Giant team set an
NFL record this year with 10 straight road wins.
Another
angle to like is the fact that Giant QB Eli Manning has had an
excellent post season to date and will certainly benefit from having
an older brother that knows the Patriot defense all to well and will
be more than willing to give little brother more than a few tips on
what to look for.
The
dirty little secret is that
New England
’s defense can be exploited as they are in reality an aged bunch
that makes up for lost steps with smart play, but that could hurt
them in this tilt against the Giants who will have speedy RB Ahmad Bradshaw
in the backfield to complete their “Thunder and Lightning”
combo.
RB
Ahmad Bradshaw didn't play against the
Patriots in the first go-around, keep an eye on this kid as he is
faster than any player on New England’s defense and will exploit
the Patriots aged linebackers in the open field much like
Pittsburgh
’s Willie Parker did against
Seattle
. An outright Giant win wouldn’t surprise me in the least,
however, I will gladly take those generous points to the bank.
KEY
STATS:
There
have only been a total of six Super Bowls in history with point
spreads of between 10 and 13 points, in those six Super games the
favorite posted a mark of 4-2 straight up and ATS with winning
margins of 12, 36, 45, and 17, however, since the advent of free
agency there has only been two Super games with a line of between 10
and 13 points…favorites posted a mark of 1-1 straight up and ATS
in those two affairs.
In
1994
Dallas
was installed as a -10.5 point choice over
Buffalo
and won that seasons Super Bowl by the final of 30-13, however, in
1998
Denver
won 31-24 over
Green Bay
as a +11.5 point doggie. Since 1992 there have been a total of six
double-digit favorites in the Super game, in those affairs the
favorite posted a mark of 4-2 straight up but went 2-3-1 ATS in
those contests, as a side note, the O/U was 3-3 in those six DD
point spread games since 1992.
Those
that like “System
Plays” might like to know
that the following system has posted an eye-opening mark of 20-6-1
ATS in the 27 Super Bowls that fit the
system, simply go thru the steps until it picks a team for you to
back:
STEP
ONE: Go against any
team that did not cover the posted point spread in their AFC or NFC
Championship game…go
against New England.
STEP
TWO: If both teams
covered the point spread in their respective AFC or NFC Championship
game, wager on the team with the most straight up wins heading into
the Super Bowl, this includes all playoff wins.
STEP
THREE: If the total
number of seasonal wins to date including playoffs is equal, wager
on the doggie.
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