Week 18 sides and totals
And recapping a strong Week 17
Typically, I don’t do Week 18 bets, because it’s so difficult to ascertain motivation and every year we see some teams act rationally and others don’t. This year’s been a little bit unique, though, with a lot sorted even before Week 17, so we got some idea of how the different teams are approaching it. We also have some clear showdowns here in the final weekend and there are a couple I do like.
To quickly recap Week 17, I did something last week I don’t think I’ve ever done, which was essentially give up the vig by making both sides of a bet. There was a small hope to middle it on a key number, 41, which equates to five touchdowns and two field goals, and covers a lot of common scores like 24-17, 27-14, and 31-10. The actual final score was 34-10, and we missed that by a field goal, so it’s not like there was zero equity there.
Ultimately, the second bet did miss, and a criticism of the result would be that once the first bet is placed, you need to just roll with the results, because you can never be too certain of any outcome to take this drastic of a step versus the element of just letting the chips fall where they may. I won’t deny that. For me, there was considerable information I hadn’t considered, and part of my calculation was wanting subscribers to get the full picture. Placing the second bet was as much about honesty as anything; some people may not have looked through the first bets yet, for example.
As it played out, the Giants got a 95-yard kick return touchdown in the final minute of the third quarter — off the Raiders’ only TD of the game — to help accelerate things and eventually push us over the total by a field goal. I do think, while the process to pay the vig to get out of the bet wasn’t probably right, the result did validate a point I was trying to make in this rare instance, which was that it was a bit of a crapshoot, but also probably one with a lean to the under. There was a strong likelihood at least one team would play to lose, given the No. 1 pick implications, and the Raiders got that memo, totaling just 104 yards in the first half. The two teams combined for just 16 total possessions, eight apiece, as neither played fast.
The Giants, after punts on their first two possessions, ultimately did take control of the game — and then their efficiency was pretty impressive, with scores on five straight possessions from the late first quarter through to a final possession where they just kneeled out the game. They got the kick return TD during that stretch, scored three offensive TDs, and settled for two field goals, amassing their 34 points in a consecutive manner, without a non-scoring drive.
Anyway, I’m mostly justifying a bad decision here — or a pair of them, starting with the initial bet not having the necessary information, and then the decision to correct it, which is bad from the perspective of overconfidence, something we can never be too careful of in betting — and I do acknowledge that. We did hit the other three bets, making for a 4-1 week after the 1-1 split. Jacksonville was a fortunate cover of 5.5 points with a series of necessarily specific circumstances leading to a field goal to push a 3-point lead to 6, something teams typically won’t do. (Typically, teams will go for it on fourth down, but in this case the time was extremely low, and a third-and-4 run play went for a loss of 5 yards, so the fourth-and-9 wasn’t a great option, so a field goal with 24 seconds to force a TD coming back with under 20 became a reasonable decision.)
It was great to get one back after some bad beats lately, but that didn’t feel like a strong win by any means. The other two bets did, though, and it was a good week. The Patriots easily covered the 13.5, winning by 32. The Seahawks didn’t necessarily run away from the Panthers, who did cut the lead to 7 in the early part of the fourth quarter, but they answered that with a score and then another late one, and the 6.5 points there wasn’t ever in significant doubt.
One thing I speculated was Carolina’s late-game tactics might be influenced by Week 18 being the clear focus, and they eventually did something I can’t remember seeing in a very long time, which was kneeling out a loss starting from a second down after the 2-minute warning, such that they kneeled and turned the ball over on downs with about 40 seconds left, forcing Seattle to take over and kneel once on their own to end the game. Did it make sense to not risk any key injuries in what was a 17-point game at that point? Obviously. Was it still an unprecedented decision, relative to just handing the ball off and punting to save a little bit of face? Yeah, that too.
Anyway, a 4-1 week was good to see, and snapped a streak of four straight non-winning weeks (two were 2-2 weeks). We’re now at 60-55 for the year, and here in Week 18, because of the realities of this season and how Week 17 further clarified things, there are some clearly interesting games where I do have a play.
Let’s get to those. As always, all minus bets are bet to win 1 unit, all plus bets are risk 1 unit.