I enjoy my communication with clients. It is not as prevalent today as it was when I opened Qoxhi Picks in 1981 … long before our business is mostly conducted online. I know there are huge advantages to getting up-to-the-minute information on game days with injuries, weather conditions and point spread shifts, something we can do for all the clients online. But I’ll tell you, I do miss the one-on-one conversations I had before the internet.
This week, I did talk to a few clients who subscribe to the phone service, and they were surprised by one of my picks, that was the San Francisco 49ers as a road favorite over the New Orleans Saints.
A number of clients asked questions I think they knew the answer to, such as: “Do you know Brock Purdy and George Kittle are out?” “You really want me to bet on Mac Jones?” “Do you think the 49ers can win with all their injuries?”
Mac Jones is not really who I’m recommending a wager on … he just happens to be in the role of a back-up quarterback getting an initial start for a proven starter. My education on how motivation works in the NFL is anchored by a game in 1965 between the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Colts.
In those days, I used to sit down with my dad on Saturdays and pick the Sunday games. When we came upon a game in 1965 with the Colts in Minnesota my dad said, “That’s an easy one. Unitas is out so the Vikings will kill the Colts.”
I agreed.
We were both wrong.
My Dad was a coach, so he thought everything relied on game plans and the athletes. I was a teenager, so I always thought I knew better. And as the scores rolled in while we were watching the 49ers play the Lions with the Colts rolling to 41-21 victory over Fran Tarkenton and company my dad said, “Maybe this Gary Cuozzo is something special.”
Cuozzo, we didn’t know how to pronounce his name, was the back-up that replaced Johnny Unitas that day.
I thought of something else, what if the Vikings were so overconfident because Unitas was out with an injury and the Colts had to overcome his loss that Baltimore was the best play of the day? I spent the next week at the library going through microfiche of old newspapers to find games where the starting quarterback for an NFL team was out.
Turns out, they didn’t all have the same success Cuozzo did that day at Metropolitan Stadium, but the backups did win more than they lost. I also figured they were mostly getting points on the spread while their starting quarterbacks were sidelined which would further increase their advantage.
From that moment on, my handicapping became more focused on motivation than the simple matchups of talent. In college, the guy that used to bring the betting cards through the campus stopped visiting our dorm after we beat him a few times and when I worked for the Oakland Raiders after graduation I got a firsthand experience of how motivation works for professional athletes. It all rolled into me dedicating my professional life to delivering clients winning NFL picks.
So, I knew Mac Jones was starting for the 49ers and that they were suffering numerous injuries on both sides of the line. I also knew, even as favorites, they were playing against a suspect Saints team being led by a quarterback, Spencer Rattler, who has never won a game in seven previous professional starts.
I didn’t need all that, I just needed the Niners knowing they would have to play their best with what they had. It wasn’t Jones alone; it was a roster on their toes to compensate for the absence of Purdy and other starters.
Now, in later years I noticed something else from a motivational perspective.
Once a team wins without their starting quarterback and are led by the backup again, they are in big trouble. The motivational boost to win that first game, when a team didn’t know they could, is now lost and they are still without their full complement of players which leaves them … well, a sitting duck.
This week, the 49ers are playing the Arizona Cardinals at home, and they are favored against a team that beat them twice last year and without the motivational edge that carried them to last week’s win in the Big Easy.
They go from the Big Easy to the nearly impossible.
Qoxhi Picks: Arizona Cardinals (+1½) over San Francisco 49ers