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**Udog** · 01-05-2015, 10:30 AM

Armadillo: Monday's six-pack

-- Utah 71, UCLA 39-- Bruins lost last five games; Ben Howland is working on TV since the Bruins fired him. Why did they fire him again?

-- Wichita State 70, Illinois State 62-- Shockers are 12-2, but covered only one of their last eight games- they're not as strong as last season.

-- Indiana State 79, Evansville 75 OT-- Purple Aces fell into road trap after upset win over Northern Iowa in previous game.

-- Louisville 85, Wake Forest 76-- Game was tied in second half.

-- Bucks 95, Knicks 82-- New York is now a woeful 5-31. Oy.

-- Mavericks 109, Cavaliers 90-- Kyrie Irving (back) is hurt now; instead of firing the coach, maybe Cleveland should fire its trainer.

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Armadillo: Monday's List of 13: Wrapping up a sports weekend........

13) When I was six years old, I chose the Rams as my favorite NFL team, mostly because I liked their helmets. Thank God I didn't pick the Lions.

That year was 1966, the first year of the Super Bowl era; in the 49 seasons since then, Detroit is 1-11 in playoff games, with the only win coming in 1991.

Sunday was probably the most bitter of those 11 losses, with Detroit getting hosed on a pass interference penalty with less than 9:00 left and the Lions nursing a 20-17 lead. Now Detroit blew 14-0 and 20-7 leads, but still, anyone who watched that game left it with the feeling that refs played far too big a role in the outcome.

12) How is Dez Beyant not penalized for going on the field (without his helmet) to protest the PI flag, which miraculously was then picked up? Its an automatic penalty.

Lets review the pass interference:
-- An official downfield threw a flag against the Cowboys.
-- Referee Pete Morelli announced it as a penalty.
-- FOX refereeing expert Mike Pereira said it was a penalty.
-- Even freakin' Troy Aikman (former Cowboy) said it was a penalty.
-- Who overruled the official who threw the flag?

But the flag was picked up, the Lions predictably got beat and now FOX and the NFL get a marquee matchup next Sunday, Dallas-Green Bay at Lambeau, Ice Bowl III.

11) If you care about such things, Dallas is now 7-25 against the spread as a home favorite under Jason Garrett. Its not important but it is interesting.

10) FOX analyst Pereira mentioned more than once that he disagrees with the NFL not using set crews for playoff games- they cobble together "all-star" crews, so you have teams of officials who have never worked together before. Not an ideal situation.

9) Colts 26, Bengals 10-- Marvin Lewis is 100-96-2 as coach of the Bengals, but he has not won a playoff game and some Bengal fans are calling for his job. Be careful what you wish for; in the 12 years before Lewis coached the Bengals, their record was a hideous 55-137. Change isn't always an improvement.

8) Andy Dalton is first NFL QB of the Super Bowl era to lose his first four playoff games; pretty good QB named YA Tittle also did it in the 50's. Going to be a long winter for Dalton, Lewis and the Bengals but I root for the Rams, who haven't had a winning season since 2003. I'd be pretty happy to make playoffs four years in a row.

7) Indianapolis was only NFL team not to score a TD on first drive of a game this season, but they went 71 yards on nine plays for a TD on their first drive Sunday.

6) Want to win a bar bet? Jim Mora Sr holds the dubious NFL record with 125 regular season wins, most of any head coach who never won a playoff game.

To be totally fair, it needs to be noted that Mora Sr was 48-13-1 coaching in the USFL, which was a good league; he won two of that league's three championships.

5) Pistons 114, Kings 95-- Detroit is now 5-0 since they cut Josh Smith, who had $26M left on his contract. That is called addition by subtraction.

4) College hoop referee David Hall has already worked 43 games this season, which is only 52 days old. Dude works a game damn near every night.

3) Former Florida QB Jeff Driskel transferred to Louisiana Tech, where he'll play for Skip Holtz. Lot of former Gator QBs around college football.

2) Six of the last nine Super Bowl champs played on Wild Card weekend, so if you think the teams that got byes are sure things next weekend, think again. Only twice in last fourteen years has a #1 seed won the Super Bowl.

1) One last football note: QB's get too much credit, too much blame. Tony Romo is a very good QB obviously, but he's played in 123 regular season games (78-45 record) and Sunday was only his second playoff win (2-3). Mark Sanchez (4-2) has four.

**Udog** · 01-05-2015, 10:31 AM

NFL Opening Line Report: Patriots open -7 for showdown with Ravens

The New England Patriots are the No. 1 seed in the AFC, so it would make sense that they would be happy about playing host to the AFC’s No. 6 seed in a divisional playoff game Saturday.

But when that team is the Baltimore Ravens, well, it probably tempers the Pats’ enthusiasm. Three times, John Harbaugh’s squad has trekked to Foxboro, Mass., during the playoffs, and twice Baltimore has gotten the victory, most recently in a 28-13 upset as an 8-point underdog in the AFC title game two years ago.

The Ravens (11-6 SU, 8-8-1 ATS) certainly have some momentum, rolling past archrival Pittsburgh 30-17 as a 3-point road pup in Saturday’s wild-card playoff game. New England (12-4 SU, 9-7 ATS) had a first-round bye, after losing a meaningless regular-season finale 17-9 against Buffalo as a 4-point fave.

John Lester, senior lines manager for bookmaker.eu, installed the Pats as 7-point chalk.

“We’ve seen this story before, and we’ve seen the underdog come out on top. John Harbaugh always has a good game plan in place for the Pats,” Lester said. “We initially bumped the spread a half point because of some decent action on New England, but that’s when the ‘dog players pounced on Baltimore. Early signs indicate the wise guys will be split on this spread.”

Carolina Panthers at Seattle Seahawks (-11.5)

Carolina (8-8-1 SU, 9-8 ATS) still doesn’t have a winning record, but the NFC’s No. 4 seed reached the divisional playoff round by fending off No. 5 seed Arizona 27-16 Saturday as a 5.5-point home favorite. The Panthers have won five in a row (3-2 ATS) – and needed to win all of them to keep their season going.

Defending Super Bowl champion Seattle (12-4 SU, 9-6-1 ATS) had a bye as the NFC’s No. 1 seed, and the Seahawks are red-hot SU and ATS, having won six in a row while going 5-0-1 ATS in that stretch. Pete Carroll’s squad capped the regular season with a 20-6 home win over Arizona laying 11 points, and during its current run, Seattle has held five of six foes to seven points or less.

“The least-sexy matchup of the weekend gets the highest number, and some bettors will shy away from this one,” Lester said. “This is a huge spread for the divisional round, and I do expect it will drop at some point. What the Panthers do offensively, they actually are somewhat built to beat the stout Seattle defense. But if Cam Newton plays like he did against Arizona, they’ll get pummeled.”

Dallas Cowboys at Green Bay Packers (-6.5)

Dallas, in the playoffs for the first time in five years, rallied to beat Detroit 24-20 Sunday but fell short at the betting window as 6-point chalk. Now the third-seeded Cowboys (13-4 SU, 10-7 ATS), who have won five in a row SU (4-1 ATS), get to go on the road, where they are an impeccable 8-0 SU and 7-1 ATS this season.

Green Bay (12-4 SU, 9-6-1 ATS) had a bye as the NFC’s No. 2 seed, after closing the season with a 30-20 home win over Detroit giving 8.5 points. The Packers are on a 7-1 SU run (5-3 ATS) heading into Sunday’s divisional contest.

“Well, the media got the matchup it wanted, and we have two teams the public loves to play, so action will be heavy,” Lester said. “I would’ve liked to open this at a touchdown, but we anticipate early action on the Pack, and we know we will have our normal massive allotment of players on Dallas.”

Indianapolis Colts at Denver Broncos (-7)

Fourth-seeded Indianapolis (12-5 SU, 11-5-1 ATS) dumped Cincinnati 26-10 laying 3.5 points at home in a Sunday wild-card game. That set up a rematch next Sunday with Denver, which beat the Colts 31-24 in the regular-season opener, with Indy cashing as an 8-point road pup.

Denver (12-4 SU, 8-8 ATS), the No. 2 seed, had a bye after capping the regular season with a 47-14 trouncing of Oakland laying 16.5 points at home.

“We went with the safe number again here, but I expect we will see some upward push from the bettors, as they never shy away from Denver,” Lester said. “Unlike the Bengals, the Broncos actually have some pass rushers who can get to Andrew Luck. I think the Colts certainly have a chance at Mile High, but we were all on the same page and very confident in setting this spread.”

**Udog** · 01-05-2015, 10:40 AM

NHL
Long Sheet

Monday, January 5

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SAN JOSE (20-14-0-5, 45 pts.) at WINNIPEG (20-12-0-7, 47 pts.) - 1/5/2015, 8:05 PM
Top Trends for this game.
SAN JOSE is 8-15 ATS (-9.2 Units) in a road game where where the total is 5 or less over the last 2 seasons.
WINNIPEG is 30-25 ATS (-0.3 Units) revenging a loss versus opponent over the last 2 seasons.
SAN JOSE is 182-192 ATS (+409.9 Units) in road games when playing against a team with a winning record since 1996.
SAN JOSE is 173-128 ATS (+30.2 Units) when playing against a team with a winning record in the first half of the season since 1996.

Head-to-Head Series History
WINNIPEG is 2-2 (+1.3 Units) against the spread versus SAN JOSE over the last 3 seasons
WINNIPEG is 2-2-0 straight up against SAN JOSE over the last 3 seasons
2 of 4 games in this series have gone OVER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons . (Over=+0.2 Units)

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NHL
Armadillo's Write-Up

Monday, January 5

Hot teams
-- Only one game on tonight's NHL schedule.

Cold teams
-- Sharks lost four of their last five games. Winnipeg lost three of last four at home.

Series records
-- Sharks won five of last seven games with Winnipeg.

Totals
-- Five of last six San Jose games stayed under.

Back-to-back
-- None

NHL

Monday, January 5

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Trend Report
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8:00 PM
SAN JOSE vs. WINNIPEG
San Jose is 2-4 SU in its last 6 games on the road
San Jose is 10-5 SU in its last 15 games
Winnipeg is 4-12-2 SU in its last 18 games ,when playing San Jose
The total has gone OVER in 5 of Winnipeg's last 6 games

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NHL

Monday, January 5

Goals don't stop as Over stays hot Sunday

Over bets went 6-1 in Sunday's seven NHL games, cashing in at a rate of 85.71 percent. This just a day after the Over finished 7-1-2 in the 10 games Saturday.

The high scoring games puts the totals record at 13-2-2 over the last two days heading into Monday's schedule, but brings the season-to-date record to just 255-276 O/U.

There is just one game on the board Monday as the Winnipeg Jets host the San Jose Sharks. Oddsmakers have the total at 5 for this game.

**Udog** · 01-05-2015, 12:20 PM

NHL
Dunkel

San Jose at Winnipeg
The Jets host a San Jose team that is coming off a 7-2 loss to St. Louis on Saturday and is 0-5 in its last 5 games after giving up 5 or more goals in the previous game. Winnipeg is the pick (-120) according to Dunkel, which has the Jets favored by 2. Dunkel Pick: Winnipeg (-120). Here are all of today's NHL picks.

MONDAY, JANUARY 5

Game 1-2: San Jose at Winnipeg (8:00 p.m. EST)
Dunkel Ratings: San Jose 9.934; Winnipeg 11.849
Dunkel Line & Total: Winnipeg by 2; 6
Vegas Line & Total: Winnipeg (-120); 5
Dunkel Pick: Winnipeg (-120); Over

NHL
Short Sheet

Monday, January 5

San Jose at Winnipeg, 8:05 ET
San Jose: 8-15 SU in a road game where where the total is 5 or less
Winnipeg: 21-14 SU revenging a same season loss vs opponent

Announcement

Monday's NHL Trends and Indexes - 1/5

Monday's NHL Trends and Indexes - 1/5

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