Weekend Betting Preview

I’m feeling really great about this week’s sports betting preview, last weekend was a bit of a beat for me as Orlando Pace went down, thus killing the Rams running game. I wasn’t happy. This week I’m very confident about a comeback, I don’t think they could put this line high enough for me to not play it; I can’t believe I’m doing it, but I’m counting on Rex Grossman.

Why This Should Win: The bet this week is on the Bears -12 at home versus the Kansas City Chiefs. Like I said, this game is all about Grossman, so let’s get the obvious out of the way. The Bears’ defense should shutout this KC team. The Chiefs only scored three points on the Texans, Larry Johnson only rushed for 43 yards, and Huard threw two interceptions. I don’t necessarily expect Huard to turn the ball over, but LJ has no shot against this team. Johnson’s performance can be attributed to KC's lack of commitment to the run and his lack of conditioning, because he only got ten carries, and Herm Edwards has already said that they will focus on pounding the ball with Johnson this week. This does not worry me at all, since the Kansas City offensive line is a shell of it’s former self. Also, the Bears’ absolutely shut down the San Diego running game, which is much better, led by Tomlinson and one of the best offensive lines in the NFL. Tomlinson was held to only 25 yards on 17 carries. I am a little bit worried about the Bears ability to stop a Larry Johnson touchdown pass but every bet is a risk. A small worry on the KC team would be Tony Gonzalez since Antonio Gates went for 107 and a TD, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Gonzalez is not in the same class as Gates, and the Chicago linebackers are probably the fastest in the NFL. The loss of Mike Brown should not be too detrimental since they dealt with it last year and the Chiefs don’t exactly have game breaking receivers. So, let’s talk about Grossman.

I split Grossman’s games up into three sections, games against good defenses, bad defenses, and then there were two anomalies (see: “Why This Could Lose”). Alright, over the last year he has faced seven “good defenses" (top-15 in total defense) [MIN, MIN, MIA, GB, NWE, SD (last week)]. His combined QB Rating in those games has been an awful, 46.5. That would have been good enough to make him the worst starter in the league last year, beating out runner-up Tavaris Jackson by 16pts.HOWEVA, against shitty defenses he tore up [DET, DET, STL, NYJ, BUF, SEA, NYG, TAM, SF]. His average QB Rating in those games was 108.1, which would have been the best in the NFL last year, beating out Peyton Manning by 7pts.

His TD/INT splits against those teams are 17 TD to 1 INT against the “shitty” teams and 6 TDs to 13 INTs versus the “good” defenses. So, basically, he’s the worst quarterback in the league against good teams, and the best against bad teams. I would obviously put KC in the “shitty” grouping since they gave up 20pts to the Texans and were ranked 20^th in the league last year defensively. So, since the average score of the Bears versus the "shitty" teams was 34-14, I'm gonna go with the Bears, and I fully expect the defense to step up since it will be the Bears' first home game.

Why This WILL Lose: I think this section is probably important since there are two sides to every story. This side involves Rex Grossman being a train wreck. I left out two games from the shitty/good groupings, the Arizona game and week 17 versus Green Bay. In the Green Bay game, Grossman went 2/12, 33 yards, 3 INTs, 0 TDs. However, we’re going to throw this out entirely since the Bears’ had already clinched home field and it was New Year’s Eve, and we only know all Grossman really cares about is drinking and fucking. So, that’s out. What is really scary is that Arizona game. In which, he went 14/37, 144, 4 INTs, 0 TDs. He completely exploded, there was not excuse for this, since it was on Monday night, it was a big game. So, against KC, there is a chance he completely explodes (he is, after all, a mental midget) and is just awful this entire year. I’m not ruling that out, but this is a bounce back situation for the Bears, their first home game, and they have a horrible team coming into town. I'm gonna guess the final score will be somewhere around 31-0.

Chicago -12 v.

Kansas City

Buzzsaw

Chicago -12 v Kansas City
Buffalo +10 v Pittsburgh

Guy

Green Bay +1 v NY Giants
St. Louis -3 v San Francisco

Big Lots

Baltimore -10 v NY Jets
Green Bay +1 v NY Giants

Sammich

Dallas -3.5 at Miami
Cincy -7 at Cleveland