Bet the Mortgage: Week 12, 2017

Tony finally had a brutal week. He hit his upset, saving something. But his three spread and total bets went way wrong. It wiped out all but a pinch of his profits for the season. He is still playing from ahead, but only by the cost of a middle-market restaurant without drinks.

Andy didn’t do great, but he held serve. He hasn’t had to take a mythical loan to cover his bets yet.

Here are the standings.

And here are our Week 12 bets:

Tony: 1-3 in bets, with my only win being a weak upset pick? That tops off a brutal week that saw me go 0-fer fantasy, including DFS picks. At least I’m finally making progress in moving away from hovering around average …

$1,500 – Cincinnati (-8, -110) vs Cleveland – I actually originally had the Browns at +8 in this one, thinking that 8 points is a pretty big spread for a team as inept as the Bengals—but not only are the Browns 0-10, they’re also 2-8 against the spread, whereas the Bengals are at least 5-5. This game won’t be pretty, despite all the awesome orange helmets.

$2,500 – New England (-16, -110) vs Miami – This opened at 15.5, and the spread has only grown—most books actually have it at 16.5 or 17 now (some even 17.5), but I see one book left on my sheet that shows it at 16, so I’ll grab it there. The Patriots went on the road last week and dismantled a team that was much, much, much…much better than the Dolphins.

$1,500 – New Orleans at LA Rams: Under 53.5 (-110) – My two frequently used mantras for betting totals — look at the lowest total and bet over, or the highest and go under. Lots of low games this week, which worries me for some reason. But for some reason, you can always trust the game that should be a shootout to fall flat. LA wins, 24-20.

$750 – Houston (+265 money line) at Baltimore – As I mentioned in our picks, I can’t figure this one out. I understand Baltimore being the favorite—but it opened at +233/-286, and the spread between the numbers has grown from there. I’m not sure where the Raven love is coming from—yeah, they just shut out the Packers, but I’m fairly certain that I could grab 10 buddies and have a 50/50 shot at that (granted, a couple of the buddies I would be grabbing are former college/NFL players). Conventional wisdom probably says I should take the +7/+100 bet—but since when have I been conventional?

Andy: No breathing room yet. And not much time to study this week – gotta go on gut feel this week. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

$1,000 – Jacksonville (-4.5, -110) at Arizona – Now that I’m buying in again, it’s probably time for the Jaguars to drop another clunker. But Jacksonville’s smothering defense gets to feast on Blaine Gabbert. They don’t have to score a ton. They just need to score enough to fend off three hours of Adrian Peterson.

$700 – Pittsburgh (-13.5, -110) vs Green Bay – What looked three months ago like a great game has turned into a yawn-fest, thanks to the fragile collarbone of Aaron Rodgers. It’s very likely that the Steelers phone this one in but still score enough off Brett Hundley mistakes to cover the nearly two-TD spread.

$600 – Seattle at San Francisco (Over 42.5, -110) – The 49ers aren’t going to win any awards, but they still seem to be putting forth an effort. The Seahawks’ vaunted defense has suffered some injuries. Russell Wilson has been heroic in his efforts to drag Seattle into postseason contention. I think there will be more points in this one than expected.

$300 – Houston (+265 money line) at Baltimore – I’ve been pretty bad on upsets all season long, so it’s probably safe now to go Ravens. But I don’t think Baltimore is that great and I do think Tom Savage and the coaching staff have sort of figured out how to keep this team competitive. Baltimore probably warrants being the favorite, but the line seems a bit high – high enough to take a shot.