AND YOU THOUGHT THE SPORTS MEDIA WAS BAD?
By Kevin O’Neill
www.consumerbet.com

Even though she’s English, Madonna has announced that she is endorsing Wesley Clark for President of the United States. Shouldn’t she be endorsing a brand of herpes symptom control medicine instead?

I learned of the Saddam news about 6:50AM on Sunday morning when I was working on some NFL stuff. Unsophisticated as I am, I was excited to hear bout the news that a man who killed somewhere between 400,000 and 1,000,000 people had been captured. It quickly became apparent that my enthusiasm was misplaced.

Never let it be said that TV news people don’t work hard. I’m telling you, those CNN people were making every effort to let me know why I shouldn’t be happy about Saddam Hussein being captured Sunday morning. The grimaces, the furrowed brows, the noting that the demonstrations in the streets weren’t as big as they could have been. Here, unrefined little me had thought this was good news, but the worldly CNN folks were making every effort to let me know that the news had extraordinary downside.

Funniest moment was when Aaron Brown came on the air and his grand, dramatic opening line is “from enormous luxury and wealth to being found in a dingy hole” (I’m paraphrasing, but it was pretty close to that). Here’s CNN’s big gun, the best they have, and he leaves the new viewer thinking that perhaps Paris Hilton had been captured. The first thing you can say about Saddam is that he lived in “luxury and wealth”? How about working “torture and kill” in there?

Strangest moment was ABC’s Terry Moran fretting about Saddam’s shot at a fair trial, making his case that the Nazi’s had been “railroaded” in their trial at Nuremberg. I obviously don’t spend enough time worrying about the due process of torturers and mass murderers. If simpletons like me were more aware of the complexity of such issues I guess we wouldn’t have the need for the Terry Moran’s of the world to enlighten us of the historical injustices faced by the Goering, Goebbels, and Himmler types.

Meanwhile, our link of the week examines whether or not the man caught in Iraq last weekend is really Saddam Hussein, check it out at http://www.nordog.com/TexCobb.html . You’re ready to kill the current events and move on to football now, aren’t you?

Here’s the Dave Wannstedt game management mangling note of the week. On Monday night, down 7 with Philly in field goal range on 4th and 2, the Dolphins called time out with 2:05 left. This saved them all of five seconds. In that instance the play was clearly to let the two-minute warning occur. The Eagles then kick or miss the FG and there is another clock stoppage on the change of possession. By calling that time out Miami saved the five seconds that would have ticked down from 2:05 to 2:00 and the mandatory clock stoppage. By not using it, they were forced to allow 24 seconds to elapse between the first down snap and second down snap when they got the ball back. The play took about five or six seconds and then about 18 seconds to spot the ball and get the next play off. The opportunity cost of the misused timeout was 18 seconds vs. 5 seconds. The 13 seconds they lost to this misused timeout didn’t affect the game, but it could have if the Dolphins recovered the onside kick after they kicked a field goal to pull within 7.

Although there is an unusual concentration of such game management problems in Miami, they are certainly not alone. Late in the second quarter with a 14-7 lead over the Panthers, the Cardinals were simply trying to get to the half, while the Panthers called time out to make Arizona punt. The timeouts forced the Cardinals to the point that with 0:03 they faced 4th down. Amazingly, the Cards trotted out the punter. While they did have the wherewithal to kick the ball out of bounds, the opportunity for a block and return was still there. The proper play in this instance would be to have the QB take a snap, provide him max protection, and have him toss the ball over the head of a receiver on the sideline. That would eat up the clock and be much safer than a potential blocked punt. The Panthers were using their timeouts to get a chance to block a punt and the Cardinals foolishly obliged them. This didn’t influence the game, but a game management coach who wasn’t worried about calling plays, substituting, etc. could have alerted the coaches to the proper call.

We’d like to share a note we received from Michelle at BoDog, which is definitely of interest to you if you plan on being involved with the bowl games.

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That’s an offer well worth checking out if you like a head start on profits. BoDog’s customer service and marketing offices are in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is a beautiful part of the world if you’ve never been there. Of course unless you ski you may want to hold out until April or so before you visit. People who deserve to be embarrassed this week include every New York Giant who didn’t spear Joe Horn while he was on the phone and TJ Duckett of the Falcons, who did an end zone dance when he scored a TD to put the Falcons on the scoreboard after being down 31-0. The Falcons did some “community outreach” by visiting some soldiers at Fort McPherson in Georgia this week. Some photos of the event showed autographs being signed. Remarkably, the Falcons were signing autographs for the soldiers and not the other way around.

This is worth looking into. The Cowboys are favored over the Giants by 10½ to 11 this week, after being a 7½ to 8-point dog on the second Monday night of the season at the Meadowlands. Has a team ever been both a TD+ dog and a double-digit favorite to the same opponent in the same season before?

How important is getting the right numbers for the sports bettor? Let’s take a look at three consecutive games on the schedule (schedule items 551-556) this past Saturday in college hoops:

Arizona opened at –9½ , closed –12, and beat Marquette by 10.
Temple opened –13, hit –11, and beat Penn State by 11.
Illinois-Chicago opened –13, went as low as –11, and won by 12.

These three games were all winnable (or at least pushable) on each side for good shoppers. But who has their entire day to sit in front of the computer? Want to bet in the style of the professional gamblers but without the time commitment? If you are a subscriber to our free Sports & Gaming News email newsletter you’ll get a free report entitled Getting the Best Numbers and Maximum Edges with Minimum Time and Effort. You can sign up to receive this report as well as our free weekly information by visiting www.consumerbet.com and clicking on the “Free Double Offer” icon.

With detailed analysis of each of the remaining 26 bowl games, our mega-colossal Bowl issue of our weekly newsletter The Max is going out to subscribers either Friday night or Saturday morning. Our NFL selections in The Max are now 61-37-6 (62.2%) against the spread since October of 2002. Subscribe for the rest of the season and you’ll get every NFL playoff and college bowl game written up for you, each week’s Midweek Phone Play, as well as handicapping articles, late week email updates, free basketball info, and a bunch more stuff. To celebrate our NFL 62.2% NFL performance over more than 100 selections, we’re running a special on the Max for $62.20 through the Super Bowl. But mention Sports & Gaming News and we’ll take 10% off of that price. That’s less than $56 through the Super Bowl. Call me to order at 1-770-649-1078 and we’ll email you this week’s issue while we’re still on the phone. You’ll then get the bowl issue over the weekend and next week’s Max on Monday. We are only taking new subscribers through halftime of the Monday night game between the Raiders and Packers. Call 1-770-649-1078 and get ready for a mountain of solid football information.

Let’s take a look at the game between Florida and West Virginia in college hoops this Saturday.
This game does not involve a myriad of statistical and situational factors. But it involves quite a bit of strategy. We consider West Virginia an underrated team in large part because they are extremely well coached. Things were a mess in Morgantown when John Beilein took the job before last season. He has brought stability and a steady hand to the Mountaineers. On the other hand, Florida is an impressive collection of talent that simply isn't playing well together right now. Donovan is a better program builder and recruiter than tactician. We'd rather have the well-coached, underrated team with some solid points. Go with the Mountaineers, and if you’re looking to receive substantive information on each evening’s hoops card, call our hotline at 1-770-618-8700.

The Houston Texans have exhibited a stunning lack of offense in recent weeks. David Carr should be back this Sunday but his 72.9 QB rating doesn’t suggest that he’ll turn the Texans into a juggernaut. Without Carr the Texans haven’t reached 100 yards passing or rushing in three of the past four weeks. They haven’t notched more than 270 yards of offense in their past eight games, and several of those games saw Carr in the lineup. But we’d have a hard time suggesting a play against Houston this week, as we’re just not in the habit of laying road chalk. The Texans should get a jolt of energy from Carr’s appearance and though they won’t put up much in the way of offensive numbers the defense should play an improved game. With little offense, a defense likely to play decent ball (Titans QB injuries) and a conservative game plan designed to avoid mistakes and keep the clock running against the superior Titans, we’ll look to the under in Houston today.

Happy Hanukkah to our friends who are celebrating the holiday starting this weekend.

Our appearances on the web may be somewhat sporadic over the Christmas holidays. Make sure you don’t miss an single edition of S&G News by signing up for your no-cost subscription at http://www.consumerbet.com/email.html. You’ll get S&G News delivered via email each week.

Kevin O’Neill is the director of content for www.consumerbet.com. His 24-hour free telephone selection hotline can be accessed by calling 1-770-618-8700.

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