Dawg Pound Daily bettor’s guide to the NFL: Wild Card Weekend
By Roger Cohen
The NFL Playoffs kick off this weekend with the Wild Card games. Our staff prognosticator has everything you need to know to make a smart play on the games.
Although raised in Euclid until the age of 5, I never really took to the suburb’s namesake mathematics. Then I gamed the system at Beachwood High and Northwestern to avoid taking the really hard stuff like calculus.
But I did learn one thing: if you flip a coin 75 times, odds are it’ll come up “heads” about the same amount as “tails.”
After 17 weeks of cherry-picking 75 NFL regular season games against the opening Las Vegas line, my final regular season record stands at 37 wins, 36 losses and two ties or “pushes.” I only emerged above .500 when both the underdog and maybe-soon-to-be Carson Raiders and Chargers covered against the playoff-bound Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos – by a single point in each game.
Whew…
Our regular season teaser record, where you get an additional six points per team in a multiple team parlay, finished at 47 wins and 20 losses for a 70 percent clip. I never wagered once this season, but if I had been betting my previous amounts this year (my wife jokes that my bookie must have really missed hearing my voice), I would have broke even when you include the “vig.” Those results are similar to nearly each of the past 30 years.
But when I was gambling, I never stopped with the regular season, because the playoffs are where the real action begins:
- Who do I trust less: Andy Reid in a road playoff game or a team led by a banged-up Brian Hoyer backed up by Brandon Weeden? Let’s go with the Houston Texans (+3.5) just to make Browns fans feel even worse this week.
- The Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t roll over the already out-the-door Browns last week. Cincinnati manhandled Cleveland twice, and this talented, well-coached squad is an incredible home dog bargain even with AJ McCarron. Bengals +3.
- Bring on Bud Grant and the Purple People Eaters, sleeveless players and breathing clouds of smoke outside at the Met. The Vikings will play their first outdoor playoff game in Minnesota since 1976, Jimmy Carter was president, a generation ago – I can’t wait to watch when zero degrees is the expected high. Zero may be what the Vikings score, a freezing cold nod to the Seattle Seahawks (-5.5).
- I loved the Washington Redskins in this spot when they opened as a home underdog, then the casual gambling fans realized these aren’t the same Packers, reversing the betting line – that scares me. Kirk Cousins either completes a game-winning touchdown or throws a goal-line pick. Washington (-1) just to annoy me having to live amidst all the ‘Skins bandwagon front runners.
Bonus play, and this one could tempt me back into wagering: a $100 bet today on the Bengals to reach the Super Bowl pays $,1000, to win Super Bowl 50 pays $2,500. I see them beating the Steelers handily, fully capable of upsetting New England and/or Denver, and keeping the Browns waiting at the altar for next head coach Hue Jackson until February.