Colt McCoy says that he is coming back to Texas for his senior year. That’s a bit surprising, but I’m glad. Not that I have any love for Texas at all – their suffering makes me happy. I just like it when guys come back for another year. Not that it makes much sense here, really. This year he is in an ideal situation – no matter what happens in the BCS Championship game he can tell anyone who will listen that they would have been the better team if they were given the chance to prove it. Things can’t get much better for him next year,but they can get worse. Somebody should give McCoy Matt Leinart’s number. Or Brian Brohm’s.
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Worst NFL Game of the Week – It could be argued that we get this one out of the way tonight when Oakland visit San Diego. That one could be ugly, but there are, sadly, worse. St. Louis at Arizona should be ugly – the Rams were blown out once already by the Cards, and they were better then than they are now. New England at Seattle could be ugly unless we see a much improved Seattle team suddenly. We won’t. The ultimate choice is clear, though – Cleveland at Tennessee. Ken Dorsey against the most ferocious defense in the league. Good luck with that.
A slightly belated look at what transpired in football action over the weekend, and we could be learned from it:
1. Big 12 QB’s non-throwing hands are fragile – Graham Harrell completely shattered his non-throwing hand early in his game against Baylor, yet was somehow able to overcome it and lead a comeback to avoid embarrassment. Sam Bradford hurt his, too. Both guys should be okay by the time they next take the field, but one thing is clear – being a Heisman candidate in the Big 12 is dangerous. If I was Colt McCoy I would be sleeping with one eye open.
Wow, is this ever a terrible Monday night game. If someone paid me to come up with something nice to say about these teams or this game I would have to give the money back. With one exception – Steve Slaton has had a very good game, and that’s becoming a trend for him. The biggest problem is that we are getting exactly the same game that it looked like we would get. I just wish the league would do something about these terrible Monday night matchups – like cancel them.
Tom Coughlin, New York Giants – It’s very well documented and obvious what Coughlin has done in the last season and a half in New York. What is remarkable about him, though, is that somehow his teams keep covering the spread no matter how much of a love affair the media has with them. He is in the midst of his fifth season with the Giants. He’s already guaranteed to have a profitable season for bettors this year since he is 9-2 ATS. He has then had only two non-profitable season, and both were barely so – 8-8 and 7-8-1. He was 10-5-1 ATS n 2005. Last year he was 10-6 ATS and a perfect 4-0 in the playoffs. Not only is he 9-2 this year, but he has covered his last six in a row despite the fact that everyone in the public regularly reads that they are the class of the league. That tells me that he has his team focused and playing their best instead of just well enough to win. That’s a bettor’s wet dream. He wasn’t as impressively reliable with Jacksonville, but he was still solid – he had four profitable seasons in eight years, and he never covered fewer than seven games. In his first job at Boston College, Coughlin had two very profitable years, and was 6-6 ATS in the third.
Continue reading “Three Coaches Football Bettors Should Love”
Worst NFL Game of the Week – Baltimore at Cincinnati is going to be an ugly blowout. Kansas City at Oakland features two teams playing together that nobody really wants to watch. There is some hope their, though – Oakland is coming off a win, and Kansas City at least has shown offensive potential. It won’t be a good game, but it at least has the potential to be interesting. The clear winner, though, is Miami at St. Louis. Miami is fine, but St. Louis is so indescribably bad that there can’t be one positive thing said about them, or one good reason to watch this one.
1. It sucks to be Texas Tech. With one lousy performance they cost their school a shot at a national championship and probably a Heisman, and instead of a huge bowl in front of a massive national audience they will be stuck in something like the Cotton Bowl that no one really cares about. I don’t feel nearly as bad for them, though, as I do for those, like me, who thought that this team was for real. The Big 12 is now officially a confusing mess.
The bad luck continues at North Carolina. Already dealing with life without Tyler Hansbrough, they have lost another player – Tyler Zeller. He has a broken wrist that will likely keep him out for the season. Zeller is a freshman and a forward, so they won’t necessarily struggle to replace him. He was off to a good start, though – he was the leading scorer in his debut game against Penn. I’m not particularly superstitious, but it does seem like the Tar Heels are snake bit. Hopefully for them their luck turns soon enough.
Worst NFL Game of the Week – Given the way they are playing, Chicago and St. Louis are not destined to make a classic – the Rams are absolutely terrible, and the Bears are in a sudden and dire slump. This should get the Bears back on track, but it won’t be pretty. There is worse, though – Buffalo at Kansas City. The Bills showed the world new and creative ways to throw away a win on Monday night. The Chiefs have a few things going for them – in Tyler Thigpen they may have finally found the QB of the future – but there are so many holes with the team that it’s almost sad. Ugly.
Best NFL Game of the Week – Indianapolis at San Diego should be a great game, but the Chargers have ensured by their play that it won’t be. Carolina at Atlanta is a surprisingly good game with high stakes. The Jets at Tennessee pits two hot teams at the top of their games together. The winner, though, is one that would have been terrible last year. The Pats and the Dolphins meet in a game that could go a long way to determining a wild card spot. Both teams can look very good when they want to, and both obviously have flaws. This game could be awful, but there is a much better chance that it will be totally entertaining.
This is going to be a shorter than usual version of this feature. That’s not because I am feeling lazy. It’s just because we didn’t really learn anything on Saturday. Everyone who was supposed to win did their job. The BCS standings and the top of the polls are still intact and unchanged. Anything we did learn only confirmed things I already suspected – LSU and Alabama are frauds and the SEC isn’t the strongest conference, Miami is on the way back, and so on. All in all, it was the least educational week we have seen for a long time in college football. Next weekend will be much, much more interesting, though.
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