Oddities Upon Oddities…

Once again, briefly today…

I cannot cite exact stats here, but I can say that I do not recall ever seeing a week like this one on the odds boards for weekend football games.  Seeing spreads on NFL games in excess of 3 TDs is rare enough that one can go an entire season without ever seeing one of them.  This week there are two games with humongous spreads:

• Jets at New England – 23 (43.5):  The Jets are down to a rookie third-string QB going against a Pats’ defense that has not allowed a TD in the first two games of the season.  I would be surprised to see the Jets score more than 10 points in this game – – unless of course the Pats are leading by 35 at the end of the 3^rd quarter and play their scrubs for the entire 4^th quarter.
• Miami at Dallas – 22 (47):  If I were forced to make a pick in this game, I would take the OVER because the Cowboys might do that all by themselves.  The Dolphins are doing a bad job at pretending that they are trying to win football games this year.

Monday night’s game will be interesting when the Bears visit the Skins.  The Bears’ offense has been pedestrian-at-best so far this year; some folks are beginning to wonder aloud if Mitchell Trubisky is indeed a franchise QB.  Meanwhile, the Skins’ defense has not been able to stop anything more robust than a runny nose so far this year.  In the first two games, the Skins defense has allowed opposing offenses to convert 65% of the third-down situations facing those offenses.  Something here has got to give…

Going into last week’s game against Temple, Maryland was undefeated and had outscored its two opponents 142-20.  Temple is a better football program than the Asthmatics Institute, but do not confuse Temple with a team that would strike fear in the hearts of the top-shelf college programs.  Maryland proceeded to implode last week losing to Temple 20-17.  Maryland QB, Josh Jackson, had been lighting up the scoreboard in the first two games; last week he was 15 for 36 for a total of 183 yards and 1 INT.  Maryland had been ranked #21 in the country after the first two blowouts; they are no longer in the Top 25…

File this next item under:

• Things You Cannot Make Up On A Bet

The Miami Heat have been playing their games in an arena that sold its naming rights to American Airlines.  The airline has decided not to continue that sponsorship; therefore, the naming rights are up for bidding.  One of the bids has come from BangBros which is an Internet pornography site based in Miami; their bid is for $10M for the next 10 years.  That should give you an idea of the profits available to such websites.

Finally, here is a comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“IndyCar racing will introduce hybrid engines in 2022, the circuit announced.

Which certainly gives ‘making a late-race charge’ a whole new meaning.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………