We remain in the dog days of summer and the 2012 NFL regular season will not begin until Wednesday. September 5th,
but Week 1 point spreads and totals has been released at several Sports book sites and it is never too early to take a look and seek some value.
This week, we look into totals and especially the ‘unders’. Just like in many sports, the defense is usually ahead of the offense in the early stages of the season, and yet the bookmakers still tend to pad the totals upward a tad with the general public loving the bet the ‘over’ on just about every game and that tends to oftentimes give the ‘under’ result.
To wit, the ‘under’ is 315-299-8 during the month of September in the last 12 seasons starting with 2000 based on the closing lines at Pinnacle, which is a slight bias but a bias nonetheless, and the ‘under’ is a more pronounced 105-84-1, 55.6 percent in Week 1 during that time, which makes sense since opening week should be when the disparity between the defenses and the offenses is the greatest.
Yes, all of this went out the window last season when the ‘over’ went an amazing 13-3 in Week 1 and 29-18-1, 61.7 percent during September, but we see that as variance and expect a return to normalcy this year. After all, just two years ago the ‘under’ went 11-4-1 in Week 1, so last season was probably just a blip.
So we analyzed all the Week 1 games Yalla shoot english this season based on the early information we have on hand and we came up with the followed five NFL picks based on the current lines found in several online sports book sites that we feel will keep the early ‘under’ trend alive and kicking til next season.
Jaguars, Vikings ‘under’ 38:
This is perhaps the ugliest matchup of opening weekend as both of these teams have a chance to finish with the worst record in the NFL betting by the end of the year. The Vikings have been dealing with some off-the-field drama in the off season with Adrian Peterson getting arrested in a nightclub and Percy Harvin asking to be traded, but in matters on the field, the whole Peterson situation is a mess.