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05/28/2010 - Elmont, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Horse of the Year candidate Quality Road heads a field of eight older horses for Monday's $500,000 Metropolitan Handicap (Met Mile) at Belmont Park. The Met Mile has a scheduled post-time of 5:50 p.m. (et).
Quality Road, second in the current NTRA Thoroughbred Poll, has drawn post seven with John Velazquez again in the saddle. The four-year-old colt is owned by Edward Evans and trained by Todd Pletcher.
Perfect in two starts this year, Quality Road has not run since winning the Donn Handicap in February at Gulfstream Park. In January, he captured the Hal's Hope Stakes at the south Florida track.
"You want to make sure they are ready to run," Pletcher said. "This is a tough spot, but we think we know him well enough and know that he's run well fresh enough times that we have an idea of what he needs to be ready."
In 2009 as a three-year-old, Quality Road was on his way to the Kentucky Derby until an injury put him off the trail. He won the Fountain of Youth Stakes and Florida Derby at Gulfstream.
He returned with a victory in the Amsterdam Stakes at Saratoga and was third to Summer Bird in the Travers. The colt ended 2009 with a second-place finish behind Summer Bird in the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park. In his career Quality Road has won six of nine starts for more than $1.3 million.
Westchester Handicap winner Le Grand Cru will start from the outside post next to Quality Road with Cornelio Velasquez riding. The five-year-old is trained by Allen Jerkens for Judson Streicher.
Le Grand Cru has just the one win this year in five starts and finished sixth to Quality Road in the Hal's Hope. In his career the five-year-old has earned $433,578 with five wins in 18 starts.
"It looks like it's going to be a really tough race," noted assistant trainer Fernando Abreu, "but our horse is doing well."
Trainer Derek Ryan will send Musket Man over from Monmouth Park for the Met Mile. The four-year-old colt, owned by Eric Fein, will be ridden by Ramon Dominguez from post three.
Musket Man is coming off a third-place finish in the Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day. He won the Super Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs in February and was second to Warrior's Reward in the Carter Hadicap at Aqueduct in April.
With wins in the Illinois and Tampa Bay Derbies last year, Musket Man has earnings of just over $1 million with six wins in 11 career starts.
Here is the complete field for the Met Mile in post position order: Convocation, Kent Desormeaux; Tizway, Rajiv Maragh; Musket Man, Ramon Dominguez; Warrior's Reward, Calvin Borel; Kensei, Edgar Prado; You and I Forever, Javier Castellano; Quality Road, John Velazquez and Le Grand Cru, Cornelio Velasquez.
<< Tigers reinstate Guillen
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Tigers on Friday reinstated
outfielder Carlos Guillen from the 15-day disabled list.
Guillen, who has not played since April 22 due to a left hamstring strain, hit
.333 with three doubles,
<< Penguins, Capitals to face off in 2011 Winter Classic
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - National Hockey League commissioner Gary
Bettman announced during his state of the league address on Friday that the
Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals will be the participants in the
2011 W
<< D.C. hopes to build on Milan win against Chivas
Washington, D.C. (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - D.C. United has scored four times in nine
MLS games this year, but may have finally found its scoring touch this week in
a friendly against AC Milan.
Luciano Emilio, Chris Pontius and Danny Allsopp scored
<< France chosen to host Euro 2016
Geneva, Switzerland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - France beat out both Italy and Turkey
to be named as hosts of Euro 2016 it was announced on Friday.
The competition will be the first European championship to feature a 24-team
format, which is an i
Texans sign McManis >>
HOUSTON (AP) -The Houston Texans have signed fifth-round draft pick Sherrick McManis.McManis, a cornerback, was selected with the 144th overall pick in this year's draft from Northwestern.He had 37 tackles and a team-high five interceptions last sea
AP Source: West, Guillen and Buehrle fined by MLB >>
NEW YORK (AP) - Umpire Joe West, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and pitcher Mark Buehrle have been fined by Major League Baseball for their recent balk flap.A person familiar with the decision tells The Associated Press that there weren't any suspe
Pirates P Morton goes to DL with shoulder fatigue >>
Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Pittsburgh Pirates placed pitcher Charlie
Morton on the 15-day disabled list Friday with right shoulder fatigue.
The move comes one day after Morton gave up seven runs (five earned) in two
innings agai
NL Central: Injuries to test Cardinals' pitching depth >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The St. Louis Cardinals' starting pitching was the envy of
the National League Central heading into this season, a formidable five-man
staff anchored by arguably baseball's best one-two punch in co-aces Chris
Carpenter and Ad
“You play to win the game!”
Those are the words of notoriously intense head coach Herman Edwards. Unfortunately, from a bettors’ perspective, most coaches don’t feel that way about the NFL preseason. August is a time to evaluate young players, finalize the depth chart and pray your star players stay healthy.
The trick to making money during the exhibition schedule is identifying coaches – like Edwards – who can’t stand losing even when there's nothing on the line.
The New York Jets betting won 15 of 21 preseason games and went 14-7 against the spread (ATS) during Edwards’s five-year tenure with the club. In his first season as the Kansas City Chiefs field boss, the team improved from 0-4 to 2-2.
Identifying win-a-holics like Edwards is a good start if you plan betting the preseason – even though most say you shouldn’t ... but what the hell do they know anyway?
Here’s a brief rundown of two teams that have a habit of winning during the second-stringers’ season, and another club that has a good chance of exceeding this year.
Playing in the media hub of North America can be stressful but the press can’t write anything negative about the way Tom Coughlin’s boys play in the preseason. The Giants won and covered all four games last summer, improving their record to 7-1 both straight up (SU) and against the spread over the last two years.
Coughlin has shown he’s not afraid to give his starters more time in the second preseason game than most of his colleagues, no doubt one of the reasons his team has been so dominant.
Bettors can count on America’s team early on. The Cowboys are 14-6 both SU and ATS since 2002 in warm-up contests. Former coach Bill Parcells, the coach of the team the last four years, has an intimidating, in-your-face presence – surely a reason Dallas has had so much early success.
The Big Tuna won’t be strolling the sidelines with looks of disgust, but new coach Wade Phillips will be anxious to make a good first impression for owner Jerry Jones.
Dallas plays the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos before things get serious. They then face the Houston Texans in their third contest (the game starters see most game time) and finish off with the Minnesota Vikings.
Expect a Dallas team able to walk away with another 3-1 preseason record.
This team scored a league-worst 12 offensive touchdowns last season, so the rookies and veterans each have something to prove. There’s a bounty of first-unit jobs up for grabs and plenty of bodies competing for those slots.
First-time head coach Lane Kiffin will be eager to impress an owner who employs the philosophy, “Just win, baby!”
The 32-year-old Kiffin has to command respect from a locker room full of players older than him. All of these factors should lead to purpose in preseason.
Don’t forget: before playing like a team that belonged in NFL Europe, Oakland went 4-1 (both SU and ATS) in exhibition games.
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There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
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