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My best friend started out as a client.

Five years my senior, my buddy hunts alligators at night in Florida waters and considers it a win when he wrestles one into his boat.

My wife tells me that my columns have too many statistics.

Seems she gets bored with numbers, but loves the human interest stuff when I talk about people interactions. So, to appease her desires, and not to abandon my forte, numbers, I will forego listing the stats for what I’m about to say. At the same time, I request you trust that numbers bear out my positions while I forgo them in favor of the story around it.

It took me nearly 40 years of professional handicapping before I landed on a wagering method that compliments both my strategy for picking winners and quest to maximize profits. Not only that, but I didn’t uncover this gold mine during a football campaign, but rather during a basketball season.

Long before I became a professional handicapper in 1981, and even before I worked in the front office of the Oakland Raiders beginning in 1973, I had developed charts to show that motivation is the most important factor in reliably identifying point spread winners. Talent is already reflected in the posted point spreads and public opinion, but the factors that tip the spread advantages to the favorite or underdog are tied to the motivation of the teams entering the contest.

The books don’t always win.

One four week stretch 10 years ago saw the gambling public have success like they enjoyed last Sunday in the National Football League. Ten years ago, a number of the casinos wilted with piled up losses and business managers suggested employing lower limits on wager amounts. Some books seemed to surrender that the public had the upper-hand that season by enacting lower limits on wagers they were willing to book.

The sportsbook manager I had the most respect explained his position this way, “The public has won four weeks in a row and their pockets are bulging with cash to wager. Why would I want to limit that? Does anybody really think the public is suddenly going to become winners? No way.”

He was counting on the gambling spirit … a factor that almost always ends with the bettors losing money.

The public has strung together two weeks currently that have the books on an unfamiliar losing streak against wagered money. Games the books usually win, exhibit ‘A’, the Patriots plus the points over the Dallas Cowboys, didn’t go their way last week. With more than 80% of the money backing the visiting and favored Cowboys, the underdog Patriots battled to overtime and won the coin toss for the extra period. The Patriots plus more than a field goal on the spread seemed nearly assured.

A Dallas stop and then touchdown when only needing a field goal to win, had the public collect on a very low percentage proposition.

The Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans met last October at Nissan Stadium. The Bills were riding a season opening four game victory streak and the Titans were looking for their fourth win of 2020. Tennessee had opened with three narrow victories before a Week Four bye.

The Bills were favored, and the Titans blasted them in a Tuesday night encounter that had been rescheduled by Covid concerns. The Titans 42-16 triumph last season still stands as the most lopsided loss the Bills have suffered since Josh Allen took over at quarterback three years ago.

Wouldn’t you think the Bills would come back to the Music City tonight and gain some revenge for that throttling loss last year?

There is a problem with that reasoning; the Bills are not in a revenge mode.

Buffalo has been anointed by many as the best team in the National Football League. They have crushed their last four opponents with a pair of shutouts and win margins of 35, 22, 40 and 18 points. That last one, the game they won by 18, was last Sunday night’s triumph over the defending AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs, 38-20.

That was the team the Bills wanted revenge on … the Kansas City squad that ended their 2020 campaign with a loss in the AFC Championship Game. And the Bills got it, in convincing fashion, which leads to this question; are the Bills likely for another lopsided road win or might this be a spot for a letdown?

The song lyrics go What a Difference a Day Makes, while in the National Football League the right words may be What a Difference a Week Makes.

The 2021 Pittsburgh Steelers are as reliable as guessing which way a feather will blow in a swirling wind. They opened the season against the powerful Buffalo Bills on the road, and as a touchdown underdog overcame a 10-0 halftime deficit to pin the Bills with their only loss of the season, 23-16. Favored at home over the Las Vegas Raiders in second week action, they dropped a 26-17 decision before losing a second straight home game the following Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, 24-10.

By the time they lost a third straight game, this one on the road against the Green Bay Packers, most football pundits were all pretty well convinced that Pittsburgh was no good. Then, as an underdog at home last Sunday against the Denver Broncos, the Steelers downed the 3-1 Broncos at Heinz Field. This week, they go from a home dog to a bet-on home favorite.

Pittsburgh opened as a 4½ point favorite over a Seattle team that limps into town on the heels of a home loss to the Los Angeles Rams in their last game and without their quarterback. Seattle has lost three of four games, and the most significant loss in last week’s setback to the Rams was the injury that has landed quarterback Russell Wilson on the injured reserve list.

Wilson will miss his first professional contest this week, it comes after he started 149 games with the Seahawks to open his sure-to-be Hall of Fame career. Without Wilson, and a rare losing record after five games for the Seahawks, it is little wonder they are underdogs to the Steelers tonight.

Two teams that are as common in the NFL playoffs as Santa Claus is on Christmas are struggling this year. Neither has a winning record, and both have been hurt by injuries.