By Kevin O’Neill
www.ConsumerBet.com

Merry Christmas to you and your family. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope you have a chance to spend some time with good friends and family and unwind over the next couple of weeks. This column will take a bye week over Christmas, so let’s get pretty deep into the upcoming football card.

If your name is Jim Mora, whether junior or senior, I’d be a bit more judicious during sports talk radio interviews going forward. Unless something real positive happens in the season’s final two weeks, the Mora, Sr. agreement that Mike Vick can be a “coach killer” and his son’s “friggin’ front of the line with resume in hand” comment regarding the Washington Huskies coaching position may cost the latter his job. You have to think that Ty Willingham is as pissed off as Arthur Blank. Many commentators have called it “unprecedented” for a NFL coach to be speaking of a college job during the regular season. In fact, in 1978 New England Patriots coach Chuck Fairbanks accepted a contract to coach at the University of Colorado in the midst of the NFL regular season. He was suspended by owner Billy Sullivan for the final regular season game when the agreement in Boulder came to light.

After the Titans beat the Jaguars 24-17 despite being outgained 396-98, having the Jags earn more first downs by a count of 23-5, and not having a Tennessee drive of more than 7 plays, we received inquiries as to whether the Titans good fortune was the most undeserved win in NFL history. It actually wasn’t even close. In 2002 the expansion Texans beat the Steelers 24-6 despite being outgained 422-47 with first downs 24-3. That dominating a loss is unlikely to ever be matched. Incredibly, the only non-defensive score for Tennessee was a 4-play, 5-yard field goal “drive” after the 2nd half kickoff was returned to the Jags 29 and a 15-yard face mask gave the Titans the ball at the 14. Despite the extreme good fortune, you may not wish to fade the Titans off this weak winning effort. They've got a '95 Northwestern Wildcats vibe where they get completely outplayed on a weekly basis yet make plays to win. Even before Sunday, the Titans had already won games where they were outgained by 230, 97, and 67 yards. And none of those was their win over the Giants, where they stormed back from a 21-0 4th quarter deficit to win.

The Titans weren’t the only team to put up a big number without benefit of much offense. New England generated only 230 yards in their 40-7 win over Houston. The Steelers had a rather pedestrian 306 yards in notching a 37-3 win at Carolina. Touch to downgrade the efforts of those teams too much, as there was really no reason to do much more than run clock during much of the second halves of those ballgames. The Patriots are 4th in the league in forcing turnovers, earning 31 takeways. Despite that production, when Ellis Hobbs returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown New England became the last team in the league to score a non-offensive touchdown. The leader in that category is the Bears, with 10 returns for touchdowns.

With an NFL game on in the background, here’s a recent conversation between my wife and me.

She: What’s with those white stripes down the referees’ pants?
Me: That’s their new cold weather gear. Pretty much a heavy sweatsuit, I think.
She: But why aren’t the pants just solid black like they usually are?
Me: Dunno
She: Yeah. Someone’s wife was involved in that decision.

Speaking of fashion, gotta love that Pippy Longstocking look that Oklahoma State hoopster JamesOn Curry has working. Dave Fobare continues to provide solid information on a daily basis on the free hotline, with a nice winning streak rewarding daily callers to that line. Dave has 4 losing days in the last 3 weeks on that hotline. Call 770-618-8700 for this free 24-hour voice broadcast of games previews, selections, and other facts and stats.

I was doing the DC-based multi-station radio show of NFL Hall of Famer John Riggins this week and for a second I had a minor panic attack, thinking I had totally botched a bowl matchup. But I hadn’t, everything was cool. But it does make this Desmond Howard clip strike a little closer to home. The only difference, ESPN’s Howard was not being asked questions on the fly. He knew he would be commenting on the Cal/Texas A&M matchup in the Holiday Bowl. He analyzed a non-existent Cal/Texas matchup instead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOn77rGFqCs Live broadcasting’s no picnic in the web video era, that’s for sure.

Let’s take a look at a bowl matchup, the Texas Bowl in Houston, featuring Kansas State against Rutgers. We’ve got the classic “disappointed favorite” here with the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers. On November 9th, the team scored the biggest win in school history when they knocked off then-undefeated Louisville 28-25 on ESPN. The school celebrated for nine straight days until Cincinnati reminded them that you have to show up every week to play. Rutgers lost to the Bearcats 30-11, then after wiping out Syracuse, lost again in their season finale at West Virginia 41-39 in triple overtime. What was their reward for this BCS near-miss? They’ve got to go a nothing bowl that’s hardly on TV anywhere to face a team nobody cares about.

In past years, this was an ideal situation for unheralded dogs to score upsets. It may be again. But there’s got to be concern about the turnover tendencies of Kansas State. They lost the ball six times in their season-ending loss at Kansas. They had two other games with four or more giveaways. If the disciplined Rutgers defense brings peak intensity, State will have trouble avoiding the mistakes that have plagued them all year. If Rutgers has trouble getting up for such a low profile game…then the team that lost to Cincinnati could very easily lose to the team that beat Texas and Oklahoma State. We’re passing for now to see if the “flat favorite” virus is going around again this year. With this game only being televised by the NFL Network, Rutgers has as little motivation as any favorite to get up for their bowl game this year. We like coach Greg Schiano a lot. If this game mattered to his players we’d probably be laying the points. We’re passing this game for now, but hope something here helped you out.

The above writeup is taken from our Bowl Max Newsletter, a 16-page publication that previews all 32 bowl games in-depth. If you would like a copy of this publication, whether by itself or as part of a special offer that gives you a copy of our book Real World Sports Betting: How Real People Make Real Money in the Global Sports Marketplace as well, call our office at 1-770-649-1078.

Is Eli Manning going to turn out to be a flop? Surprisingly, the evidence is pointing in that direction. Though he occasionally has very good games, his passer rating this year is just 79.3. Guys who are destined to be stars usually crack the 80’s before their 30th career start. Manning will be at 39 starts at the end of the regular season. His TD/INT ratio this season is just 22-17. Drew Brees is at 25-11 to give you some context.

You don’t win in this league with guys below 80 in passer rating. That’s only acceptable if you’re biding time until he matures. Manning’s not showing improvement, and the fans and franchise are running out of patience. The Giants are 1-5-1 ATS their last six games by the way, with the only win coming over Carolina and Chris Weinke. That 27-13 win didn’t look so good when Pittsburgh won the next week 37-3 on the very same field.

With Manning’s lack of productivity, Big Blue’s defense getting a bit healthier, a couple of deceptively high scoring games for the Giants recently, and a good example on how to slow down New Orleans on last week’s Redskins/Saints game film, we’ll take a look at the under at the Meadowlands.

Have a terrific Christmas, a safe and happy new year, and a great holiday season. Thanks again for reading. Good luck and be careful. If you don’t get this via email visit www.FootballAnnual.com to receive this each week via email.