Okay, so it was just a .500 week and Andy ended up just $170 ahead for the week. Who cares – for the first time in several weeks, he didn’t have to worry about mythical broken legs. The bank roll went back up. He brought slightly less shame than normal upon his family.
And then there was Tony.
A couple weeks ago, his mythical bankroll was in the black. In the last two weeks, he’s lost nearly half of his original $10,000, however, with a 0-3-1 week eight causing his biggest tumble.
A garbage time touchdown here, a blocked punt TD there, an uninspired performance by Atlanta and … here we go again. Week seven was another gross week for betting here at Zoneblitz. Tony missed hitting all four games by 1.5 points, but lost $1,182 due to his big bet on Atlanta. I had less money on the line, but once again missed three games, sinking further into my hole. As always, this is for entertainment purposes only–if you’re following our advice…well, by this point, shame on you.
Last week
Last week $
Overall
Overall $
Bankroll
Tony
2-2
-$1,182
13-15
-$505
$9,495
Andy
1-3
-$1,867
9-18-1
-$6,179
$3,821
A couple more weeks of this, and I’ll have wiped out my whole bankroll for the first time since we’ve been doing this bit–and possibly before week 10, even more impressive.
Tony
Disappointing week last week–kind of reminds me of Andy and my first trip to Vegas more than 15 years ago, when Andy bemoaned for days that we lost our first every parlay bet by less than 7 points. Never mind that we missed 3 of the games on the ticket–it was less than 7 points! So, now it’s time to put Andy in my rear view mirror–or beat him to the bottom.
$2,500 – San Diego Chargers (+3, +105) at Baltimore Ravens – The only thing about this game that scares me is that it’s a west coast team traveling east–which never seems to bode well. At the same time, the Ravens are 1-6 this season–yes, they’ve been losing close, but they’ve been losing. And in this case, they could win, and I could still win the bet.
$2,000 – New York Jets (-3, Even) at Oakland Raiders – The Jets are still one of the biggest surprises to me of the season–and I know that some will say that traveling west will hurt them. But I think Beast East will has a chance for a big day, and the Jets shockingly have too many weapons to let this one slip away.
$1,500 – Miami Dolphins at New England Patriots: Over 50.5 (-110) – The Dolphins have had a resurgence since getting rid of Joe Philbin, scoring 82 points in two weeks. The Patriots are less concerned with giving up points, as long as they continue to put up 30+ per week. I’d be tempted to take the over on this one at 60.
$300 – Dallas Cowboys (+220 moneyline) over Seattle Seahawks – The Cowboys are at home, and clearly have struggled since Tony Romo went down. But their defense is still playing fairly well–or at least angry–and the Seahawks have shown no reason to believe that they can effectively score points against anyone this season–to the point that the guy who was trotting out Russell Wilson each week in my dynasty football league just gave up a first round pick to acquire Andy Dalton. That’s desperation.
Andy
$600 – Minnesota Vikings (-1, -110) at Chicago Bears – The Vikings rarely win in Chicago, which I imagine drives this point spread. But this season Minnesota appears to be on an upward trajectory while the Bears were, at least a few weeks ago, in sale mode. This won’t be a blowout, but a Vikings loss in this game would be a huge disappointment for them.
$600 – Atlanta Falcons (-7.5, even) vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers – The Falcons have leveled off a bit the last couple weeks after coming out of the gates on fire. But they’re still far superior to Tampa. It’s my guess that they’ll gash the Bucs a bit with Ryan-to-Julio Jones early and then spend the remainder of the game pounding Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, coming away with a 10 to 12 point win.
$500 – Cincinnati Bengals (pick em, +105) at Pittsburgh Steelers – If Ben Roethlisberger comes back this will be a close game. But unlike what I thought would happen going into the season, the Bengals look like they are for real this year. Tony and I just traded QB Andy Dalton in a Dynasty League. I expect he spends Sunday making us look like fools.
$300 – Miami Dolphins (+355 money line) at New England Patriots – The Dolphins have looked like a new team since replacing Joe Philbin with Dan Campbell. The offense, in particular, appears to have found new life. While this might be an unlikely upset, the +355 makes it a gamble worth taking.
This is getting ugly. Both of us went 1-3 last week. At least Tony did it from an undisclosed tropical location. I was forced to watch my imaginary bankroll tumble further as Indianapolis hit a meaningless garbage time touchdown from my own living room. It was a tired, cold night.
Anyway, Tony’s progress was largely wiped out. My nosedive became even sharper. Here are the numbers to date:
Last week
Last week $
Overall
Overall $
Bankroll
Tony
1-3
– $1,068
11-13
+ $677
$10,677
Andy
1-3
– $1,875
8-15-1
– $4,312
$5,688
As long as there are still pretend dollars in our pretend bank accounts, we’ll keep pretending to bet. Here goes: (more…)
Well, neither of us is going to make a living gambling on football anytime soon, but … one of us keeps going slowly in the right direction while the other one keeps swirling in the drain.
Tony keeps inching upward and, despite just a 10-10 record, he’s hit enough of the right bets to be approaching a 20 percent return on his bankroll. Andy is … taking on water after another 1-3 week.
Here’s where we stand.
Last week
Last week $
Overall
Overall $
Bankroll
Tony
2-2
+$438
10-10
+$1,745
$11,745
Andy
1-3
-$870
7-12-1
-$2,437
$7,563
No sense wallowing, however. After all, it’s a mythical bankroll. So, as always, here we go again.
This has started out as one of the more difficult seasons to figure out in recent memory. Even Vegas seems a bit more confused than normal – one week the street cleans up on them and the next they get everything back.
The confusion is coming out in our bets too. Not that we’re professional gamblers or anything, but other than one 3-1 week by Tony, we’ve failed to get more than two correct in any given week so far. Tony split his four bets again last week, hitting on two bigger bets that provided enough for a small profit. I am struggling big time. I got a push on one over/under bet, but only hit one of my other three. At least my losses are coming in small enough doses where I should be able to ride this out a while.
After we each alternated 1-3 and 2-2 weeks, Tony finally caught a good wave in week three, hitting three $1,000 bets and narrowly missing his upset.
I went 2-2, but lost my bigger bet when the Colts comeback was almost come back against by Tennessee – needed the Titans to make the two-point conversion and lose by a TD in OT… but so it goes.
So, anyway, Tony’s a bit up for the year. I’m a bit down for the year. Here are the standings: (more…)
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