As the last minutes of the Superbowl winded down I had the feeling of sadness come over me. Not because I particularly cared about which team won, outside of my bet I didn’t, or because I was sad about the season ending because at this point I am ready for a a few months without football. What caused my sadness was knowing that this was probably going to be the best gambling season of my life and that it seems very unlikely I will ever have a year this good again. The final numbers are crazy, 60% is considered a great season and this year ended way over that, its all down hill from here.

Superbowl: 1-0

2016 NFL Playoffs including SB: 6-2

2015 Reg Season: 57-35-3

2015-16 NFL Season Overall (Playoffs and Reg Season): 63-37-3 or 63%

Superbowl 50 Review

Car – Den: A couple of notes about betting from the week. I said in the SB post that the unders were clearly the best bets at the open and the sharps hit those numbers hard, driving the number down from 46 to 43.5 and the 1st half under below 23. Not only did the sharps win with their numbers but any number you got would have cashed. The first half under cashed despite the fact we had a defensive TD by the Broncos and another score set up by a huge punt return. I hear a number of sharps say they bet under 23 1st half at the Superbowl blindly and it makes sense when you think about all that goes on pre game. Next year I will look for that number as well.

As far as the game, we once again saw how elite defensive teams will always be undervalued when compared to elite offensive teams. Here we got the #1 defensive team by quite a margin getting way more than a FG and we still saw over 60%of bets on the Panthers. The Broncos won the way they had all year, they got to the QB. Broncos  got 13 QB hits and 7 Sacks on Cam Newton and produced the games biggest play a fumble on a sack that was returned for a TD. Playing with a lead was so crucial in the game for the Broncos because it allowed them to stay conservative on offense and not have to take ay chances, they simply didn’t have the offense to come back on a defense as good as the Panthers.

Cam Newton and the Panthers had a truly remarkable year, the criticism he took afterwards was nonsense, I don;t see why anyone would be surprised that he would be upset or not want to talk about losing the biggest game of his life a game where he had to be disappointed with not only the result but his own play. This was just a very difficult matchup and I think the nerves of being in the biggest spot got the best of not only Cam but also the coaching staff. It happens. Still a fantastic season by a great, great player.

**I was able to cash the one prop bet I posted CJ Anderson over 1.5 receptions but I was most upset about losing a prop bet I didn’t post which was ” Would Jay-Z be apart of the halftime show? YES” I have no idea how he wasn’t there, I was so god damn mad, he has songs with Beyonce and Coldplay, this was Superbowl 50 so it seemed like a sure thing we would see some special guests and I thought for sure he would be apart of it. Cot Damn.On the bright side we did get plenty of ‘Yonce

 

I wish I had a stronger feeling about this Superbowl today than I do, this isn’t the game of the year or some 5 star pick, I feel about as confident in this one as I did in some random Jags – Titans game in November. It’s clear to me today that the best bet on the board was the under on the opening number of 46 and maybe even better was the under on the 1^st half of 23. Neither of those are available anymore but maybe we get some opportunities in live betting. With that said I am going to pick a side, so here is the big reveal.

 

2015 Playoffs: 5-2

2015 Reg Season: 57-35-3

Superbowl 50: Den +6 vs Car: ( 5.5’s still around)

Bet% Den 38% Car 62%

Well I feel today the same as I felt when the conference finals ended, Carolina is the better team and I think they win the game but I think the Broncos make the game tough and it’s a close FGish type game. So with that comes the struggle of if you think the panthers are going to win, generally, the spread in the Superbowl doesn’t matter, when favorites win they cover and when under dogs win they usually win straight up so just pick the winner. I still like the points here for a few reasons.

-Public Perception: These 2 teams could not have looked any more different in their playoff wins this year. The Panthers blew out Seattle in the 1^st half and destroyed the Cards. The Broncos one very close margin games where the offense struggled to look good in either win and they needed to hold on right to the end. We have a 60/40 split in betting percentage here on Sunday but last week that number was closer to 70/30. Great Defensive teams with average or below average teams are always going to be undervalued because they win ‘ugly’.

Late Money: All the early money and bets were on the Panthers, the line was around 6 for a few days and looked like it might get to 6.5 but we saw major money at that point and then the 6’s started to go away. I jumped in around Thursday as it was clear 6 was the best the number would get to unless we saw major money on Sunday on Panthers. Well that didn’t happen and we have seen the opposite, late money has been on the Broncos and the number has dropped to 5 and even 4.5 at some points.

Low Total: With a total of 43.5/44 we are expecting a low scoring game which works into the favor of the Bronco’s, both of the Broncos playoff games had low totals and the margin ended below a TD.  I don’t see any chance of a game like last week where the Cards imploded with turnovers because I don’t think Kubiak has any intention of putting this game in Manning’s hands and saying go throw it 50 times. That being said I think the extra week of rest does help Manning, he will be needed to make some plays to whichever WR of Thomas or Sanders doesn’t have Norman on him and the extra rest should help those throws.

The Broncos have the #1 DVOA defense (-25.8%) while the Panthers are #2 (-18.4%) although in weighted DVOA they were 5^th so they did drop a bit end of year for what that’s worth. To give context of just how good Denver was on defense this year,  if we look at overall numbers the Panthers #2 defense is closer to the #6 Chiefs at 11.4% than the #1 Broncos.

It’s obvious that of the 4 units on offense and defense in this game that Bronco’s offense is the weakest but that is not something this new, the Broncos were undefeated at one point this year with the worst avg passer rating in the league. The point is that the poor offense didn’t stop the Broncos from winning 13 games in the reg season and 2 more in the playoffs and I don’t expect it to all of a sudden stop them from being competitive here in the Superbowl.

Player Prop Bet

** I have also made a few prop bets, most not worth mentioning but I do really like is the OVER on total receptions for CJ Anderson which is set at 1.5

The blowout in the Panthers Cards game certainly caught me off guard but the number of points scored wasn’t and neither was the great performance by the #1 defense of the Broncos. The conference championships are the last weekend for hardcore football fans before the Superbowl gets hijacked and it couldn’t have gone any better than 2-0.

Conference Finals: 2-0

2015 Playoffs: 5-2

2015 Reg Season: 57-35-3

Conference Final Results

NE @ Den: Denver had one of their best defensive performances of the season, they had 24 pressure plays including 17 QB Hits. NE’s lack of running game allowed Denver to focus on the pass but in a major new wrinkle they did it without blitzing, as the Broncos brought 4 or less rushers at the highest levels all year which certainly caught the Patriots by surprise.

Ari @ Car: I thought the offenses would have a big game here but obviously didn’t expect to see it so one sided. I don’t know what you can take from a game that has a team turn the ball over 7 times the way Arizona did, up until the fumble on the punt return by Patick Peterson it looked like a competitive game but one that happened it just seemed to start an avalanche.