Headline Play Guest: Running on Empty

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Running on Empty

by Dennis Ranahan

The Las Vegas Raiders are still looking for their first win, and they have been looking in all the wrong places.

The Raiders swept their four preseason games, they played the three preseason weeks and the Hall of Fame Game, under new head coach Josh McDaniels. That buoyed their prospects of building on last year’s success that included a playoff berth. Few things are more bitter for a good team than winning all their preseason games and then getting tripped up when the games count in the regular season.

The Raiders opened their campaign at the Los Angeles Chargers, and Los Angeles played their best game of the season while downing the visitors 24-19. In second week action, the Raiders were favored at home against the Arizona Cardinals and looked to be on their way to a victory before a furious fourth quarter rally by Arizona knotted the score at 23 and sent the game into overtime.

The Raiders looked like they were going to win there too, but a fumble returned for a Cardinals touchdown sealed the Silver and Black’s fate in a 29-23 loss. Again favored last week, against a winless Tennessee Titans squad, the Raiders lost on the road in a close one, 24-22.

So what gives with the Raiders?

Weren’t they supposed to be better than this?

Yes, they were, but no they’re not.

The Raiders losses have all been winnable contests, and they were favored in their two most recent setbacks against the Cardinals and Titans. Would it be rude here to mention to the Las Vegas fans that the Cardinals and Titans only have one win each this year, and those victories came against the Silver and Black?

Yeah, probably.

So, do we take the Raiders on Sunday when they host the Denver Broncos with confidence they aren’t going to lose four in a row?

This also just may be the wrong place for the Raiders to find their first win. The Broncos are arguably the better team with an offense that is now under the direction of a future Hall of Fame quarterback, Russell Wilson. The longtime Seattle Seahawks starter has not played up to his lofty standards during the first three weeks of NFL action. But, his team has managed to win two games since they lost a nail-biter in the opening Monday Night Football telecast, 17-16, to Wilson’s former team.

Here is what we have on Sunday when these two teams square off in Sin City. The Raiders are favored for the third straight week while still looking for their first win. Conversely, the Broncos were double-digit favorites when they met the Houston Texans two weeks ago and underdogs at home last Sunday night against the San Francisco 49ers. In other words, the Broncos have won as both a favorite and underdog and the Raiders have failed on both counts.

So, why are the Raiders favored this week?

Because the guys with the pocket protectors and horn rim glasses figure there is no way the Raiders are going to fall to 0-4 while the Broncos dart three games ahead of them in the AFC West Division standings.

What that rationale fails to recognize is that the Broncos are not seeing themselves in competition with the Raiders, but the two other teams in the division that have wins, the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers.

Here is the rub, when a team is looking for their first win and can hide behind the fact that they were close in their losses, it wreaks havoc with their motivational juices. It would be best for Las Vegas if they lose one big and then return as a motivated underdog.

That is not the situation here. The Raiders are favored, bet-on this week, and expect that their first victory is just 60 minutes of game clock away.

It’s not.

Not against an inspired Broncos team with the challenge to keep the Raiders winless and getting points on the spread in that quest.

Qoxhi Picks: Denver Broncos (+2½) over Las Vegas Raiders

Ending, First

by Dennis Ranahan

The Cincinnati Bengals.

Last year, they were in a typical spot to have a very bad year, particularly against the point spread. They had gone from years of last place finishes to the Super Bowl, such a meteoric rise commonly generates an off-year the following season.

It started that way for the Bengals, they went from losing the Super Bowl to the Los Angeles Rams to opening the 2022 season with a home loss to division rival Pittsburgh, 23-20. In second week action, the defending American Football Conference champs got beat in Dallas by a Cowboys team forced to play a second string quarterback following Dak Prescott’s opening week injury.

Then, the Bengals expected decline reversed field like a rocket. The talent and leadership of quarterback Joe Burrow had Zac Taylor’s team win all but two point spread decisions the rest of the season. They also took the Kansas City Chiefs to the brink in defense of their AFC title before surrendering a three point decision, 23-20, at Arrowhead Stadium.

How did they do that?

How did they go from losing to a struggling Steelers team on their home field, and falling to the Cowboys as a road favorite, before catching fire in a season that should have continued down the rocky road shown the first two weeks?

More importantly, how will the Bengals respond this year after winning when they shouldn’t have last year?

I’m telling you, I’ve got empirical evidence to support a colossal collapse or Super Bowl win.

Take your pick.

Nothing in the middle for the Bengals in 2023, they either win it all or drop like a rock.

Here are the possible scenarios that could play out. The winning season last year, despite being caught in a traditional down season, only adds more credence for a fall in 2023.

Conversely, the Bengals just might be so good that they can come off another year where a Super Bowl title has eluded them and this time grab the golden ring.

It’s early, but as of now, I think the Bengals win it all with a Super Bowl LVIII triumph at Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders.

Hoops

by Dennis Ranahan

The NCAA Basketball Tournament is the best sporting event every year.

The Super Bowl is great, the World Series seemed more important when I was a kid, and the NBA playoffs can generate a lot of excitement. Yet, the three weeks of college basketball leading up to the National Championship Game, this year staged in Houston on April 3, is glorious from the beginning. Every team that starts play on Thursday and Friday, once the field has been thinned to 64 teams, has a chance to capture the top prize.

In college football, the possibility of a national champion is reduced to four before the nearly 100 teams participate in their postseason bowl games. Football can’t really do it any other way, and assuring head-to-head competition for the National Championship adopted in recent years is a step forward.

In all likelihood, one of the high seed teams in this year’s tournament will win it all, but we have already had two top seeds eliminated this year. Only once in the past twenty seasons have all four teams seeded first in their region advanced to the Sweet 16.

On Friday, the Purdue Boilermakers became only the second top seed to lose their opening round game when they fell to upset bound Farleigh Dickinson. Five years ago, the University of Maryland, at Baltimore County, upset the Virginia Cavaliers in the first ever number one seed to fall to a 16.

Virginia bounced off that loss in 2018 with a National Championship in 2019. That would be the kind of response the Boilermakers will be looking for following their stunning defeat.

This year, the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights not only became the second 16th seed to win their opening game, they also gave nationally ranked Florida Atlantic all they could handle in their second round game. The Knights' dreams finally ended in a single digit loss to the talented Owls, 78-70.

People who have enjoyed our football picks on this site want to know if we do basketball?

Last week, two games we did select were observably dominate physically over their opponents, something we only came to know after the games started. The Miami Hurricanes clearly had the advantage Charles Barkley described as “kids against adults” while observing the same attributes with San Diego State versus overmatched Furman.

The National Football League is what we do, and while the numbers I weigh decisively pointed to Miami over Drake and San Diego State over Furman, I didn’t realize their physical advantage until I saw the games. In the NFL, I would not be surprised by how the team strengths matchup while owning both a clear understanding of team strengths and the line moves and wagering patterns that illuminate winning point spread plays.

Picking point spread sides purely by the numbers generates solid returns, but without a true appreciation of team strengths and weaknesses those presumed best selections can’t be delivered with the same level of maximum confidence.

Full season football clients get our NCAA and NBA Playoffs picks by text, it is an added benefit that isn’t sold separately because we do football first. If we had a bad run in basketball, like we did two years ago, the worst thing would be to lose football subscribers based on basketball plays.

Our wagering recommendation for the NCAA Basketball Tournament is equal amounts on both the first half score and final result. Over the first four days of this year’s action Qoxhi releases were 16-9 on final results, a solid 64% winning margin.

The first half results did not fare nearly as well, even the aforementioned game between Miami and their superiority over Drake didn’t have the first half result match the final winning result. In all, the first half record of 10-12-3 reduced a nearly 10% profit margin on opening account balances to a 6.1% profit margin.

Wagering on the first half in college basketball, and quarters in football, adds risk to a solid investment that can either enhance profits or reduce the bottom line. The first two years the Triple Play NFL plan was available online, it showed winning margins of 36% in 2019 and 39% the following season. Two years ago, the Triple Play strategy suffered a losing record, while rebounding in 2022 with their best year, returning a 75% profit margin over the entire 18 week regular season.

Winning final selections statistically more often wins the first half result too. The fact that the first half results in the opening week of NCAA Basketball Tournament play were negative could be viewed as an anomaly, and that would commonly be followed by a robust winning run.

If you want the NCAA Tournament for the remaining schedule, and all the NBA Playoff selections texted to you, sign up for the Qoxhi football season now.

Early Edge

by Dennis Ranahan

Art Rosenbaum worked at the San Francisco Chronicle for 60 years, 25 of those as sports editor. In 1981, he was ten years before his retirement and visiting me in my east bay office the first year I opened Qoxhi Picks.

A man that covered numerous Olympics and had been to every major sporting event was sitting in my Concord office. It was a friendship forged during my years with the Oakland Raiders. Rosenbaum had a wide range of interests, and one of them was the point spread side of National Football League games.

During our visit he told me of a handicapping service named “Volition.” They didn’t release a pick until the third week of the season, based on a theory that sides could be more accurately chosen after the teams revealed who they were in a couple weeks of regular season play.

I couldn’t have disagreed more.

The best time, I contended to Art, was early in a season when our collateral data was based on current strengths and the public was still backing last year’s results. I emphasized that enough to Art that he ended the subject with a smile, wave of his right hand, and the comment that he’d take my side on this matter.

Good call.

Four years ago, the Indianapolis Colts opened in San Diego against the Chargers as a six point underdog and our top pick of the week. The Colts lost the game, but pushed on the point spread, 30-24. That push is the worst result for a top pick in the first four weeks of the past four seasons. Fifteen consecutive point spread wins including ten underdogs that won straight up.

What I was counting on to gain an early season edge forty years ago is still what works today, but in 2023, we have so many more tools to access pertinent factors. I’m a realist, I’d bet against us never losing, but sure like our position on future success.

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