Sports Fan Paradise

Some weeks on Blog Blitz I will be playing the role of football analyst, sometimes I'll be a comedian, and other times it will be the fantasy guru. But this week I will putting on the hat that probably fits me the best: Expert Degenerate Gambler, which is why this column is running here instead of there. "Expert" doesn't mean that I win a lot of money gambling (far from it), it just means that I am an expert when it comes to gambling degenerately. This week I will tackle the Pats-Bills game and give you my hints for getting the most out of your offshore online gambling account.

First let's look at the spread. As of noon on Friday, bodog.com had the Pats listed as 14.5 point favorites. I would LOVE it at -13.5, as I loved the Packers to crush the Bills with a -13.5 spread last week. Sadly, this Patriots team is not nearly as ruthless as the 2010 Packers and a shell of themselves from 2007, when they would have won this game 77-0. Until the Pats show that they can do ANYTHING in the 2nd half, there is no reason to believe that they will be able to cover more than 2 touchdowns. My guess is that it's 21-3 at halftime and finishes up at 27-13. I'm taking the Bills +14.5.

Now for the over/under, currently sitting at 42.5. Now, I just predicted the final game score to total 40, so it seems like an easy under, but degenerate gamblers never bet on what makes sense ... not right away anyway. We need to toil with it. Can I see the Pats coming out and scoring 35? I guess, but the Bills held a decent Miami team to 13 offensive points and didn't even give up 35 in Green Bay last week. Can I see the Bills scoring points against the Pats defense that we witnessed during the 2nd half of last week's loss to the Jets? Absolutely. The Little Giants could probably put up 21 against our secondary, even if Icebox decided to stick to cheerleading. So as you see, I've talked myself into a conundrum. Is the Pats offense so good and defense so bad that 42.5 will get crushed? Or is the Bills offense so bad and our 2nd strategy so ill-conceived that the game is sloppy and actually does finish at 27-13 or lower? I'm going to take option B and hope that the Bills' benching of Trent Edwards in favor of Ryan "Obligatory Smart Joke Because He Attended Harvard" Fitzpatrick won't do much to improve the league's worst passing attack. Under 42.5.

Finally, this is the part where I usually get a little crazy. I like to scour the prop bets to see if anything looks like easy money. Brady is 5/1 to record the most passing yards in the 1:00 games, but I'm expecting a shootout in Houston so I'll leave that one alone. The over/under on Fitzpatrick's passing yards is 165.5, but I refuse to put money on anything that Darius Butler is so directly involved in. That leaves the bet on which receiver will compile the most yards during the 1:00 games. I would love to go with Moss at 11/2 or Welker at 15/2 but I just can't do it, mostly because I don't think it will be a close game. Give me the Carolina version of Steve Smith at 15/1, he's due for a big game and the Bengals secondary didn't impress me in Week 1.

So there you have it, a quick detour into an addicted mind. If I don't post a links column by Tuesday on Blog Blitz, it means that I had to sell my laptop. The game is the game.