This Week in NFL Betting By the Numbers
by Darin Zank - 11/2/2011
It's hard to believe, but the NFL regular-season will be half-over by this time next week. One team remains undefeated, while two teams remain winless. And seven divisions are being led by teams that did not win them last year. Here are a few more interesting numbers we found while sifting through the debris of NFL Week 8.
5-11-1 – ATS record of NFL double-digit favorites so far this year. Of the four double-digit favorites in Week 8 betting action, one got beat outright (New Orleans, by St. Louis), and none of the others covered the pointspreads. For this week WagerWeb is listing two more teams as double-digit favorites; The Houston Texans are favored by 11 points over the Cleveland Browns, and the Dallas Cowboys are somehow favored by 11.5 points over the Seattle Seahawks.
+675 – The winning moneyline payout those who backed the Rams on Sunday received after St. Louis shocked the Saints. The Rams' victory was the biggest moneyline and pointspread upset of this NFL season so far. For this week St. Louis visits Arizona in a game that is off the board as of Tuesday afternoon because of questions about both teams' starting quarterbacks. New Orleans, meanwhile, is favored by eight points at home vs. Tampa Bay.
21 – Points the Baltimore Ravens, as 12-point favorites, trailed the Arizona Cardinals by in the second quarter Sunday. Yeah, the Ravens rallied for the win, but bettors shouldn't consider Baltimore an elite team when they follow up the sorry effort they put on in Jacksonville two Monday nights ago with the first half they played Sunday. Not to mention they cost your humble correspondent a teaser bet. For this week WagerWeb is listing the Ravens as three-point dogs at Pittsburgh.
4-0 – Record of the Kansas City Chiefs, after their 0-3 start. KC has been outscored on the season by 42 points, and outgained by 66 yards per game. But after getting very lucky and beating accident-prone San Diego Monday night the Chiefs are tied for first place in the AFC West. For this week WagerWeb is listing KC as 4.5-point home favorites over winless Miami.
51 and 50 - Number of passes thrown Sunday by Baltimore's Joe Flacco and Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger, respectively. Normally, throwing that many times is not a good sign. But Flacco rallied the Ravens to victory over Arizona, and Roethlisberger helped the Steelers hold the ball for over 39 minutes in their win over New England.
5 – Games the Carolina Panthers have lost this season by one score or less. Carolina has lost by seven points to both Arizona and Green Bay, by five to Chicago and by three to New Orleans and Minnesota. And they led Atlanta going into the fourth quarter before losing, 31-17. The Panthers, 5-3 ATS this season, have this week off before hosting Tennessee.
31 – Length of the field-goal attempt, in yards, missed by Carolina's Olindo Mare late in Sunday's game vs. the Vikings that would have tied the score.
2 – Number of teams left in the battle of attrition to go 0-16 and earn the right to draft Stanford QB Andrew Luck. St. Louis removed itself from that race Sunday by beating New Orleans, leaving 0-8 Indianapolis and 0-7 Miami in the running.
3 – Number of times I kicked myself in the rear end – which is hard to do, believe me – for backing Denver Sunday vs. Detroit. Most bone-headed pick I've made this season.
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