2010 NFL Week 1 Free Picks Recap: Happy with 2-1!

Going 2-1 in any week is good, but doing it in the first week of the season is fantastic.  Even if Calvin Johnson’s catch would have been called a touchdown wouldn’t have helped.  Our bid to go 3-0 was over long before that play.

Overall, we picked the right spots and capitalized on mismatched pointspreads posted by our sportsbooks.

Miami Dolphins -3

This game started out looking like the Dolphins would run away with it, but late in the fourth quarter the Buffalo Bills scored on Trent Edward’s 31-yard touchdown pass to Roscoe Parrish to pull within three points and ruin the cover by a half point.  At the end of the day, it was the Dolphins’ defense that bailed us out.

The new look Dolphins’ defense held the Bills to 166 yards and forced them to punt on six three-and-outs.  Backed up on their own one-yard line, the Bills purposely surrendered a safety in hopes of receiving better field position with 1:32 to go.  The strategy didn’t work and the Bills received the ball on their own 20 yard line with 30 seconds left in the game.  The gamble might not have worked for the Bills, but it covered the spread and handed us our first win of the season.

Detroit Lions +6.5

When we placed this bet, we looked at Bodog because we were looking at the underdog.  Our other sportsbooks had the Lions getting six points, but Bodog seems to favor the underdogs much of the time.  We were more than happy to have that extra half point.

The Lions looked relatively good during the game.  If you were watching the game, you probably thought their chance to win was knocked out with Matthew Stafford and his separated shoulder.  However, the Lions did look to take the lead at the end of the game with a touchdown by Calvin Johnson.  The pass was ruled incomplete because he didn’t retain possession through the entire play.

The 14-19 loss was good enough for another win on the day.  But with Stafford out for the next 4-6 weeks, it could quite possibly be the last time we put money on the Lions to cover any spread.

Over 44 Detroit/Chicago

Though we really liked this bet and were talking about it all week, it turned out to be our weakest pick.  It’s a good thing we didn’t put any more money on it than our other picks.  We didn’t expect either defense to hold the other offense off the scoreboard – and they didn’t.  But neither team scored as much as we expected.  It is hard to say if Stafford would have led the Lions to more points if he could have remained in the game, but the reality is that he was injured.  Even the late touchdown that was ruled incomplete wouldn’t have helped our over bet.