I often run into football fans and even bright handicappers who look back at years gone by and say, “The NFL was easier to pick in those days.”
No it wasn’t.
Picks already played are always easier to predict, but before games were played in any past year the challenge of beating the point spread has been mostly consistent in degree of difficulty. Sure, it looks like it was easy to pick home team underdogs in the 1970’s, or even more dramatically Monday Night Football home teams getting points.
But, in those years, taking the Atlanta Falcons over the Los Angeles Rams just wasn’t that easy. The public gravitates to favorites like swallows to San Juan Capistrano.
This season, we have a whole new edge that in future weeks and years people will look back on as if the picks were easy. This is generated by the rash of COVID-19 outbreaks that have caused a number of key players to be sidelined. This week, while the Minnesota Vikings are in desperate need of a win to keep their flickering playoff hopes alive, they will be without starting quarterback Kirk Cousins, who isn’t vaccinated and tested positive earlier this week for the virus.
What does that mean?
It means tomorrow at Lambeau Field the Green Bay Packers are putting Aaron Rodgers up against Sean Mannion with the top seed in sight for the home team. Now, I liked the Packers early in the week when they were favored by less than a touchdown. Six weeks ago we had the point spread underdog Minnesota Vikings as the top pick of the week when they hosted Rodgers and company, and even in that sweet spot the Vikings struggled to eke out a three point win, 34-31.
The return meeting had all the earmarks of an easy win for Green Bay … but now that the point spread has been shifted up to Green Bay by 13 points given the quarterback matchup has taken a dramatic shift, I’m not willing to chase the line.
For those that do, and if the Packers go on to win by more than two touchdowns, this game will be considered easy. But I’m just too tied to value in the point spread to chase a line like this, just as I avoided a Green Bay game earlier this year when Rodgers was sidelined for a contest at Arrowhead Stadium against the Kansas City Chiefs. With Rodgers out, the point spread grew to Kansas City favored by a touchdown instead of a field goal, and that made all the difference in a game that ended with the Chiefs winning by six points and losing on the seven point spread, 13-7.
The Chiefs haven’t lost a point spread decision since that early November straight-up win and loss to the line.
In 2021, the books have been saddled with setting spreads on games that have taken more sudden shifts than bumper cars being driven by a group of kids at a 12-year-old birthday party.
If we are looking for a game that appears to be on an even keel and no apparent threat of a COVID outbreak, we take a look at the contest in Buffalo where the Bills host the Atlanta Falcons.
Three weeks ago, the Bills lost an overtime decision to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that was reminiscent of the defeat suffered by the New England Patriots against the Dallas Cowboys in Mid October. That is, an underdog who played well enough to win, only to lose both the game and point spread decision when the team that lost the coin toss went on to score an overtime touchdown to win the game by six points.
As I wrote a couple weeks ago before taking the Bills laying double-digits against the Carolina Panthers, I expect Buffalo to do what the Patriots did after that stinging loss … win seven straight games both straight-up and against the point spread.
So far, so good, with wins over the Panthers and Patriots while this week they host a Falcons team that has a won/loss record better than their talent dictates and a team perfectly capable, based on results, of getting blown out by superior teams.
Like the Bills.
Qoxhi Picks: Buffalo Bills (-14½) over Atlanta Falcons