Turkey Day
Football Teaser
Picks
11/28/13
Time sure flies. We went live with this site back in 1995 and for the most part, run things the same today as we did back then. Along the way, one of the traditions we have had here is to offer up a Turkey Day Teaser. Why you ask? Well, because it’s un-American NOT to have a wager on the Thanksgiving Day football Games. Having a finaNCial stake in the outcome of the Turkey Day Games goes hand in hand with the Turkey, mashed potatoes and Pumpkin Pie! (for Our friends from other countries, join us for the day just the same!)
Now, to be clear, we don’t advise doing this regularly. There’s no edge to be had here. If we felt we had an edge on any of these Games, we’d play it as a straight bet and would put it out as a Key Release. This is simply a play, for a peanut, that eNCompasses all of the Games on Thursday. We’re going to use all 5 Games. We’re going to use 5 dimes sportsbook to play this 5 team parlay, buying points to Our liking on each Game. The end result is a 5 team parlay with odds of -110 to win 100.
Drum Roll please……….
Lions +7.5 over Packers – Yeah, we’re buying more points on this one than any other. But hey, it’s the first Game of the day and we’d hate to start the day off with a loser and kill the parlay. It’s hard to trust either of these teams with the Lions off a home loss to the Bucs and the Packers on a 4 Game slide without Rodgers. It’s also a HUGE Game as both teams are still very much alive with the Lions at 6-5 and the Packers at 5-5-1. Aaron Rodgers was practicing with the team this week, but the chances of him playing are slim to none, closer to none, ACCording to the Packers. This one likely goes right down to the wire and really, could go either way. We lean towards the Lions to bouNCe back at home and boosting this to a full +7.5 should get us the win here.
Cowboys -1 over Raiders – Just going with the Cowboys to get a straight up home win here. The Raiders aren’t very good and the Cowboys should be a playoff team. The Boys sport yards per point numbers of 12 on offense and 17 on defense which are what we would expect to see form a playoff team. The Raiders numbers are 17.2 and 14.6, exactly what we’d expect from a team that will be watching the playoffs on TV. Our model uses data from the full season, last 4 Games and last 7 Games and predicts Cowboy wins by scores of 34-19, 37-17 and 36-23. The Cowboys covering the -9.5 is certainly a good possibility but we’ll play it safe with Our parlay and move on to the next Game. At this point, we’ve made it thru most of the day, hopefully still intact, full of Turkey and all the trimmings and we can settle in for the 3 night Games.
Steelers +10.5 over Ravens – The Ravens might be the better team here, but if they are, it isn’t by much. Using full season data Our model has the Ravens on top by 5, 23-18. Of course, the Steelers looked like they were going to be the joke of the NFL one month into the season. But they turned things around the the models predictions using 4 and 7 Games of data reflect that turn around, predicting scores of 23-22 with Pitt on top using just 4 Games and 20-19 with Balt on top using 7 Games. Bottom line here is that we would lean towards the Steelers side getting the +3 with the regular Game line. Getting +10.5 should get us the win here as the Ravens certainly haven’t been much of a threat to extend a margin this year as they haven’t scored more than 20 points for 6 straight weeks.
Texas +7.5 over Texas Tech – We’re less confident about this one. We lean towards the Longhorns laying the -4.5 on the regular Game line so buying a buNCh of points and taking +7.5 gives us a bit of a cushion here. You can read Our write up on this Game here.
Miss State +13 over Ole Miss – Aside from Our numbers showing this as a close Game, iNCluding Our model which has Miss State winning straight up 28-27, this is also a do or die Game for Miss State and their hopes for a Bowl Game. They sit at 5 wins and this is their last regular season Game. That, and revenge for last years 41-24 loss should be enough motivation to put Miss State over the top. If they don’t win, the +13 should guarantee a cover. In fact, you could even consider taking some points away from Miss State here and using them in one of the other Games.
That’s it. It’s just for fun and just for a peanut. We think we have a winning Turkey Day ticket here. We shall see. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!