It's no secret that there are many "smart money" players make money with sports betting every week. How? Many use sports handicapping services to find the games that have the best chance of winning. The following are two examples taken directly from my sports handicapping service, David James Sports: San Francisco 49ers at Chicago Bears -16

Wow... this a lot of points to be giving up in an NFL game. Of course when you start to look at the two teams, you can understand why the 49ers are getting so many points. With the exception of the Monday Night near-disaster in Arizona against the Cardinals, the Bears have been totally dominating all season long. In four of the Bears wins they outscored their opponents 137-20.

Think about that stat for one second. These are NFL teams we're talking about, not some over-powered small college teams playing against powerhouses. 137-20 over 16 quarters of football, which included last year's NFC champs, the Seattle Seahawks. With pro games even more weight is put on the here and now as opposed to historical stats.

The here and now says that the Bears have the potential to be a team for the ages. The only reason they came close to losing in Arizona was because their offense turned the ball over 6 times. And yet the Bears still found a way to win. On the other hand, the 49ers are just another lousy football team. They somehow managed to beat St. Louis and Oakland this season, but they've given up over 40 points per game in their four losses. This is the key stat of this game. The 49ers defense is likely to let Chicago score in the mid, to high 30's this game.

With the line being at 16 points, the question becomes, can the 49ers score 20 points against the Bears defense? I highly doubt it. Forget records against the spread, etc., in this game. What this game comes down to is the 49ers are overwhelmingly mismatched on both sides of the ball, and their going into a very amped up, very hostile environment. The Bears are going to be trying to pour it on in front of their home fans.

I look for the Bears to crush the 49ers in this one, 37-10.

As you can see by this example, a good sports handicapper can cut through all the nonsense and get right to what's most important about a game. Namely, the Bears have a much superior team and will be able to destroy the 49ers. The actual final score in this game was 41-10.

The second game was the top match-up of the day. You can see when you read this analysis that the professional sports handicapper is again able to zero in on what's most important about the game:

Indianapolis Cots +3 at Denver Broncos

This game is the marquis match-up of the week. This game could very well be a preview of the AFC Championship game... which is why we're going with the Colts in this one. Let me explain. Tony Dungy is a great coach, and a great man.

However, he's not quite so great in the playoffs. Why? One, his teams can beat up on lesser teams during the regular season because they have more talent, but when playing opponents who are more evenly matched, it's a lot harder to go up and down the field -especially in the playoffs. But the second reason is that Dungy is not quite as savvy as some of the more experienced coaches... for example Mike Shanahan.

What that translates to is that the Colts are going to pull out all stops to win this game, even if it means showing the Broncos some twists and wrinkles that they should be saving for their likely match-up in the playoffs. More importantly, Indy knows that the pressure is on them to win the Super Bowl again. They know that a loss to Denver might mean coming back to Denver in a blizzard in January to get to the Super Bowl.

Peyton Manning does NOT want to play in another blizzard in the playoffs and be embarrassed again. Plus, just looking at the two teams, this game really is a mismatch. Denver hasn't scored more than 17 points in a game this season. Actually, they only scored 17 points TWICE this season. All their other games were under 13.

Denver's defense is playing great, but in my opinion, is over-rated. Their last three games were against Cleveland, Oakland, and Baltimore. Look back to how the Steelers destroyed their secondary in the AFC Championship game last January. Manning is going to do the same. With all this in mind, in my opinion it's crazy that the Colts are actually GETTING 3 points in this game.

Like the Kansas City game, I think the Colts chance of winning this game outright is at least 50/50. With the added three points, the odds of winning this bet go up dramatically. Look for the Colts to win going away, 28-13.

What actually happened in this game is very close to what was predicted, with the Colts winning by 3 points. The Broncos, knowing that they'll be playing Indy again in the playoffs, stuck to their soft zone defense all game. This allowed Indy to score every time they had the ball, but it allowed to Broncos to keep some tricks up their sleeve for their next game.

Print

Tell friend

Top

---