NFL Referee Woes Continue

by | Dec 12, 2013 | 2013 season, Zebras Are Human Too

In week 14 of the NFL season, just 15 months after replacement officials made the call that many Packers fans will undoubtedly claim is the biggest injustice in the history of the league, several NFL games had questionable calls by the full-time referees — questionable enough that even Peter King called several to attention in his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback column.

I wasn’t able to watch the entire Vikings/Ravens game on Sunday, but there were two more calls in that game that I saw (and apparently one more that I didn’t) that King could have added to the list — an extremely questionable pass interference call on Chad Greenway late in the game, a chop block call against Joe Berger and the non-reversal of a Toby Gerhart “fumble” that was no more a fumble than I am a Chippendale model.

The Ravens scored a touchdown after the fumble, and scored the game-winning touchdown after the pass interference call.

The calls were bad enough that the league took the rare step of actually calling Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier to discuss the situation — likely an empty gesture for a guy who is probably on his way out after a rough season. (more…)

SPONSORED POST: Zoneblitz Takes on FanDuel.com

by | Dec 8, 2013 | 2013 season, NFL Gambling

In addition to the fantasy football content we’ve been posting this year, we also decided to take our addictive personalities and take a shot at something that potentially fills our needs for gambling big money AND staying focused on even more football games than our 8 fantasy football teams require–FanDuel.com. We actually got an account established when we signed up for another fantasy football site subscription, and after a couple of slow weeks at the beginning of the year, we were hooked.

Based on some feedback some a friend of ours that has been playing for a couple years, we quickly started to focus on the 50/50 leagues, where you only have to finish in the top half of the league to get paid.  Of course, our luck at FanDuel has been somewhere between our regular Fantasy Football (I personally made the playoffs in all three leagues for the first time that I remember, and have two byes this weekend) and our regular football betting column.

So we decided this week to go ahead and post the lineup we chose this week for our biggest FanDuel league–a $60k salary cap 50/50 league:

QB – Joe Flacco – $6,900RB – Jamaal Charles – $9,600
RB – CJ Spiller – $6,500
WR – Torrey Smith – $6,600
WR – Calvin Johnson – $10,000
WR – Jacoby Jones – $5,000
TE – Charles Clay – $5,000
K – Blair Walsh – $5,400
Def – Baltimore Ravens – $5,000

What do you think?  If you play FanDuel, post your team here for comparison.

Bet the Mortgage: Week 13, 2013 NFL Best Bets

by | Nov 30, 2013 | 2013 season, NFL Gambling

weekly-betsAndy here. Hope you’re all enjoying your Thanksgiving weekend.

So … Tony may be having a better season than I am when it comes to picking against the point spread. But simple math skills? Not so much.

Truth be told, I wondered all along how, with as badly as I have performed, how I could be more than $1,100 ahead for the year. Turns out anyone could be a sports gambler when the casino is giving you back your original bet twice when you win.

Yes, Tony’s been paying out more than he should have. It’s a good thing he’s not working for a real casino or he’d be laying awake at night dodging Vinnie and Guido … again. So, below are the corrected totals. It’s a pretty dramatic difference – Tony goes from up a lot to up a little. And I go from up a fair amount to … ugly.

But what the hell. It was all pretend money anyway, eh?

Week 12 Season Week +/- Bankroll Season +/-
Andy 1-3 18-28-2 – $1,910 $7,570 – $2,430
Tony 2-2 23-25 + $410 $10,563 + $563

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Bet the Mortgage: Week 12, 2013 NFL Best Bets

by | Nov 21, 2013 | 2013 season, NFL Gambling

weekly-betsAndy just can’t win for winning. Last week, he managed to not lose a single one of his bets (hitting on two, and getting the first two pushes recorded for our bets this season), and netted an impressive $1,913 in profit.

Good for his balance, but not good enough compared to my week, despite me only hitting .500 again. I hit the first four digit bet of the season with Philly, and tacked on another $1,500 onto my total with an Even win with Oakland (turns out I should have taken them on the moneyline like Andy).

  Week 11 Season Week +/- Bankroll Season +/-
Andy 2-0-2 17-25-2 +$1,913 $11,848 +$1,148
Tony 2-2 21-23 +$2,450 $15,694 +$5,694

With just six weeks left in the season, things are definitely being cranked up a notch, so nothing is guaranteed for either of us–I’d still look for one of us to be broke in 3 weeks.

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Bet the Mortgage: Week 11, 2013 NFL Best Bets

by | Nov 14, 2013 | 2013 season, NFL Gambling

weekly-betsWell, I took a shot with going big for one bet in Week 10–which promptly flopped. And, of course, since I played it relatively safe on the rest, my 2-2 finish resulted in a grand total of a $9 loss–definitely not breaking the bank this way.

Still, a $9 loss is better than dropping over a grand in smaller bites, which is what Andy pulled off with another 0-fer weekend, once again with his Thursday night massacre. I haven’t heard from him yet this week on bets, so maybe he’s finally going to keep his losing to Sunday’s.

Week 10 Season Week +/- Bankroll Season +/-
Andy 0-4 15-25 -$1,050 $9,935 – $65
Tony 2-2 19-21 -$9 $13,244 + $3,244

This week, as Andy pointed out in our Week 11 picks, there are finally some great games–which can sometimes make for some tight lines. But not this week, it appears, as even the historic 9-0 vs 8-1 Chiefs vs. Broncos matchup features a line greater than 7 points–somewhat amazingly in favor of the one-loss team. Our Week 11 bets are below…

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