Behind The Lines Vol. 5
by T.B
Courtesy of SportsInsights.com
10/1/2004 3:15PM EST

Behind The Lines Vol. 5

Some random thoughts while wondering what it must be like to live on Planet Kobe:

-Will Ferrell was hilarious in the debate last night.

-John Edwards better get that giant cold sore/lip zit fixed before his debate with Dick
Cheney next week or else the moderator is going to sound like Austin Powers in
‘Goldmember,’ “Next question, Senator Mole, er, I mean Senator Edwards. If George Bush is
re-elected, is a terror attack on the U.S. mole likely, uh I mean, more likely?”

-We will see a posted total of 60 or higher on a Colts game this year.

-After watching Pedro implode again, you just know that somehow, someway the Yankees will
once again vanquish the Red Sox in the playoffs.

-John Stockton is having his number retired by the Jazz. He should come out of
retirement and sign for a few million, since he can still play the position better than
90% of the PG’s in the league right now.

-Damn, that Will Ferrell was funny.

Taking a look at last week’s action, it wasn’t a nice one for the books. The back and
forth battle with NCAA football continued and most places picked up a small profit on
Saturday. However Sunday was almost a total wash. There weren’t too many monster
games, but the teams the public did load up on, (Philly, Seattle, Indianapolis) did make
their number. Combine that with a lot of other contests falling into that dreaded zone
where both teams were winners if you teased them up or down and it was a lousy day.

A closer look at some of the number moves right before kickoff was revealing. In this
space last week we previewed the Philadelphia @. Detroit game, cautioning you not to
follow the lemmings off the cliff by jumping all over the Lions. I don’t like it when
too many of the “experts” have the same team as their upset special.

Looking closer at the numbers there was still a significant middle on this game, right up
to kickoff. Oasis Casino was down to a -4 +100 while Sports Interaction had the Eagles
all the way up to -6. Hopefully for them that chased some of the money away as this one
was over in the first 4 minutes with Philly jumped out to a 14-0 lead and never looked
back.

If you were checking Sports Insights right before kickoff, you also should have known
something was up in the Houston @ KC game. The Chiefs opened the week as a 9 pt.
favorite and the action was there on KC. However, the number had moved DOWN to 7.5 so it
was fairly obvious the smart money loved the Texans.

This humble reporter steered you in the right direction last week with a straight bet on
Indianapolis and their juggernaut offense, which rang up 45 points last week. And we
also had a nice pickup on our 2-team teaser of Washington and Denver. But that’s ancient
history so let’s take a look at this weekend’s featured games.

Miami @ Georgia Tech – Sat. 3:30 PM EST

A few places have posted a total on this game in the 42 pt. range. Miami, as usual, has
a tremendous defense. Georgia Tech hasn’t been lighting the world on fire with their
point scoring ability. But in this game I think the Miami offense is the key. I’m
pretty sure Brock Berlin was in the same recruiting class as Gino Toretta and he still
hasn’t put up numbers comparable to that Heisman fraud.

Against Houston in their last game, the ‘Canes did score 38 points. That looks good
until you see that Oklahoma nearly doubled that output in their game against the Cougars.
The game opened at Miami -13 and has moved up to an even two touchdown – 14 as of today.


Checking our Sports Insights bet graph we see 60% of the Straight bets are on Miami, to
go along with 73% of the parlays and teasers. We like Ga. Tech at home in this one,
especially when teased to the Under.

NY Jets @ Miami – Sun. 4:15 PM EST

Too easy, right? Miami can’t possibly start the season 0-3 at home can they? Well yes,
and, yes. The game opened at Jets -5 and has since moved to Jets – 6. One place is
already up to -7 and others may soon follow. Miami has reinstated Jay Fiedler as their
starting QB. What’s going on in Dave Wannstedt’s head? Who pulls their starting
quarterback after the first half of the first game?

And now Lamar Gordon, the replacement for Ricky Williams’ replacement, is out of this
one. These are two teams going in different directions. The linesmakers don’t want to
admit how bad Miami is or how good the Jets are. The public has no such problems with a
whopping 87% of the Straight bets and 90% of the ‘junk’ backing the Jets. Sometimes you
have to take the free money.

Teaser Of The Week

A new feature added this week to Behind the Lines. Because the teaser has become such a
popular bet, a constant refrain you hear in the offshore world is, “We need to break up
teasers.” Sometimes they don’t even care which side wins. This week it’s a 2-teamer,
the Bears (up to +16 or +17, depending on who your out is) combined with the Colts (moved
to +3 or +3.5, depending).

As banged up as the Bears are, they still have hung tough this year. Serviceable backup
Jonathan Quinn will get a few points on the board. And even though Jacksonville’s
defense has been outstanding, they’re not going to shutout the Colts. The Jags’ offense
hasn’t shown much scoring punch (only 35 points in 3 games, Indy had that many IN THE
FIRST HALF last week) and if they do manage to eke out a win, it won’t be more than a
field goal. As always, enjoy the games this weekend … T.B.