SportsInsights

As the 1 PM games were coming to a close and our early fate had been sealed, Stony turned around from the line board, looked me square in the eyes and delivered a flawless impression of Sam Elliot in The Big Lebowski.  “Sometimes you eat the barre, and sometimes the barre eats you,” he proclaimed.  This afternoon, the bear ate us.

Despite the fact that the public took a beating every which way they went yesterday, (favorites, dogs, overs, unders, parlays and teasers), they woke up determined to cure the hangover by taking a little of the hair of the dog that bit them as our handle increased from last week.  They went with favorites, and they went big.  It did not matter who was playing or what the spread was, everyone was willing to give points.  They went with the Dolphins and Green Bay against divisonal rivals.  They went with Buffalo and Kansas City at home.  They even went with my grandmother, the favorite at this afternoon’s North Shore JCC bridge tournament.  Sure enough, they were all winners.

Even when Joe Action bucked the trend by going with San Fransisco getting three at St. Louis, he didn’t get hurt because he got a push and made out like a bandit on exotics.Going into the 4 PM games, we needed some of the worst teams in the NFL to stop some of the bleeding.  With the early winners coming back and laying big money on favorites, Carolina, Arizona, San Diego and Cincinatti had to defy logic and come up big.  Steve again turned to me and said, “It’s gonna be a blood bath.”

As the late games went to half, we got a bit of reprieve when underdogs held their own as Philly, Tampa and Oakland faield to cover halftime lines.   

As the afternoon’s action came to a close, the tides continued to turn in our favor as the public’s early love affair with the favorites ended with some good old fashion trailer park domestic violence.  The Bengals covered and the Panthers won outright, and both served to break up the majority of exotics.

Despite our valiant comeback during the late games, it all came down to ESPN’s Sunday night game in Minnesotta, where the public were all over the heavily favored Vikings.  In fact, we needed Chicago for everything:  first quarter, second quarter, half, game, over, exotics.  We even needed the Bears for the coin toss.

The Bears lost the coin toss, and the rest is history.