Tuesday’s 6-pack
Some more interesting spreads for Week 4 of NFL:
— Carolina @ Dallas (-5)
— NJ Giants @ New Orleans (-8)
— Kansas City (-5.5) @ Philadelphia
— Houston @ Buffalo (-17.5)
— Arizona @ LA Rams (-6.5)
— Seattle @ San Francisco (-3)
Quote of the Day
“I can’t fully understand why anyone gets in a huddle.”
Nick Saban, an old defensive coordinator
Tuesday’s quiz
In the movie The Hangover, what did Stu (Ed Helms) do for a job?
Monday’s quiz
Jay Cutler (102) has started the most games at QB for the Chicago Bears.
Sunday’s quiz
Drew Bledsoe was the Patriots’ starting QB before Tom Brady.
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Tuesday’s Den: Nobody asked me, but…….
13) This week in 1974, big league pitcher Tommy John had the UCL in his left arm repaired by Dr Frank Jobe; Astros’ pitching coach Brent Strom was the second guy to have that surgery.
Obviously, Tommy John surgery has helped a ton of pitchers resume the careers; shouldn’t Dr Jobe be in the Baseball Hall of Fame? They put freakin’ Marvin Miller in the Hall last month; all he did was make the players wealthy. Did he really help the game of baseball at all?
Dr Frank Jobe needs to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
12) Dallas 41, Philadelphia 21:
— This was one of the worst Monday night games ever. Seriously.
— Philly’s first 7 drives: 24 plays, 143 yards, outscored 7-0 by Dallas defense.
— Eagles’ RB’s had three carries the whole game. Three.
— Philly had a defensive TD in first quarter.
— Dallas scored TD’s on three of its first five drives.
— Cowboys have eight takeaways in three games (+5).
— Dallas won field position by ten yards.
— Last 4+ years, Dallas is 10-3 ATS in NFC East home games.
11) In the interest of fairness, I watched the Eagle-Cowboy game on the Manning Channel on ESPN2, out of curiosity more than anything else. Can’t criticize something unless you listen to them first, so I tuned in.
Some observations:
— It was much better than I thought it would be.
— They had four guests: Matthew Stafford, Lebron James, Nick Saban, Chris Long, which added to the quality of the show.
— Learned some good stuff, so in that sense I’m glad I watched.
To me, they’re doing this to keep Eli in the public eye so he’ll get elected into the Hall of Fame when he first becomes eligible in a few years (he doesn’t deserve to get in the first year, but he’ll definitely get inducted eventually).
For this format to work, they have to be critical when teams screw things up; the Eagle offense was so bad in this game, they let Jalen Hurts off the hook a little bit, but overall, it was worth the time.
Thing is, they’re taking the next three weeks off; no more Mannings until Week 7, possibly because of conflicts with the baseball playoffs.
10) Week 4 in the NFL is Subplot Weekend:
— Obviously, Brady/Gronkowski going back to Foxboro is a big deal.
— Andy Reid takes his Chiefs to Philly to play the Eagles; luckily, coach Reid got out of hospital Monday morning. We hope he is feeling better.
— Urban Meyer is will be back in Ohio Thursday night, when his Jaguars visit Cincinnati; Meyer was 83-9 in seven years at Ohio State. He is already 0-3 with Jacksonville.
— Kevin Stefanski brings his Cleveland Browns to Minnesota Sunday; Stefanski worked for the Vikings from 2006-19, under three head coaches, so this game has to be special for him.
9) If you’re into fantasy football, here are the leaders in WR targets so far:
34— Davante Adams, GB
33— Cooper Kupp, Rams, Keenan Allen, LAC, Darren Waller, LV
32— Brandin Cooks, Hst
31— Stefan Diggs Buff, Mike Williams LAC, DJ Moore, Caro
8) New Orleans Saints are 2-1, but they’ve only had three plays of 20+ yards. With Drew Brees in New Orleans, we came to expect an explosive offense, but Brees is retired, so now they depend lot more on their defense.
7) Las Vegas Raiders’ points in second half/OT: 23-17-19 points, so they’ve been explosive after halftime, with two of their three wins in overtime.
6) Auburn fired its first-year WR’s coach Cornelius Williams; they’ve played four games, it is still baseball season, and they fired an assistant coach. Must be an interesting backstory there.
5) NFL divisional trends in non-divisional games:
— NFC East home teams are 0-4 ATS out of division.
— NFC North home teams are 4-0 ATS out of division.
— AFC North teams are 1-4 ATS as favorites, 4-1 as underdogs out of division.
— AFC South home teams are 1-5 ATS at home out of division.
4) During the NBA lockout in 2011, Cowboys/Seahawks both offered Lebron James a contract to play tight end in the NFL, which would’ve been interesting.
3) St Louis Cardinals have won 16 games in a row; their starting pitchers have only seven of those games- they’ve been winning lot of games in late innings.
2) Washington Nationals’ 1B Josh Bell grew up in Texas, where high school football is a really big deal, but his dad got hurt playing football when he was young, so he wouldn’t let Josh play high school football, which would’ve put his baseball career at risk.
Seeing how Josh Bell is making $6,350,000 this season, his dad was smart.
1) NFL rookie QB’s are 1-10 ATS this season; the seven first-time head coaches are 7-14 ATS.